


Kill Me With a Kiss

by occultclysms



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst, Blood and Injury, Crushes, Death, Friendship, Love Confessions, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Murder, Na Jaemin-centric, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27420256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/occultclysms/pseuds/occultclysms
Summary: Jaemin is a senior at Neo School for the Gifted, a prestigious spy academy. The academy is cutthroat, rigorous, and incredibly secretive. In their final year, every student must kill their partner in order to graduate- the person who has been with them through thick and thin in their years at school. Jaemin's partner is Jeno, the boy he's been in love with for two years. Now the only question is: is their will to graduate greater than their camaraderie?
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 105
Collections: '00 FIC FEST ROUND TWO





	Kill Me With a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> hello all! so you have clicked on my fic, prompt #00091, and want to read it. well you need to read this first.
> 
> there isn't a good tag to explain this, but this really does feature death exesscively and how jaemin copes with losing people in different ways. so along with that there is some things (spoiler warning tho, kinda): students do actually kill each other, some students chose to commit suicide instead as well. since i dont want to totally spoil everything 5/6 of the characters tagged in the character sections all live. you have been warned.
> 
> to my prompter! wow so this was going to be 20k and then i procrastinated and decided i could write it as 10k and then... well. it is Not 20k anymore. this entire thing would not be here if not for the support of my friends and beta as i tried to write this whole thing during submissions like an idiot. but thank you so much for prompting something that made me write this much, i had an absolute blast

** INTRODUCTION **

Jaemin goes back and forth between the idea that he’s very grateful for the opportunity to attend Neo School for the Gifted, a prestigious spy academy, and that he should kill the very person that even allowed for him to have this opportunity. Either way he ends up with the same results— Jeno dead. Just that thought makes Jaemin's stomach turn. 

It’s all of the 00 liners' last year in school, which means they have a final challenge on top of their last few classes; to kill their partner. The very student they were paired with in year seven and have now spent years of time getting to know each other and becoming friends. There’s a limited number of spots at the top and Jaemin has to kill for his.

The whole process is extremely illogical in Jaemin’s opinion. If one duo are the best spies compared to all the other duos, then why kill one of the best spies? Counter intuitive towards their whole goal of training spies. They spend years and years on them, only to have half of that work go to waste. What’s the explanation given to parents? Jaemin’s parents have no clue that he even attends spy school, and it would devastate them if he died.

Some, like Jeno, were raised to be spies from a young age by their families. Why Jaemin got paired with Jeno to begin with is something that makes Jaemin question the taste of the school staff. Sure, he knew Jeno when he came here, but he's still surprised they were considered equals in terms of pre-spy training. He’s a very normal kid (aside from the spy school business) and no one else he hangs out with is anywhere near normal.

Take Donghyuck for example, when he’s not in school, he spends his time trying to kill every polar bear on Earth. It’s such a strange goal, but Donghyuck is convinced that polar bears are killing machines and need to be stopped. This is also why Jaemin gets nauseous whenever he steps foot into Donghyuck’s dorm— there’s polar bear heads all over his half of the room and Jaemin doesn’t understand why Renjun puts up with it.

But all of that aside, Jaemin wants to strangle Jeno for putting him in the position of actually having to strangle him. It’s been driving Jaemin mad all summer because somehow everyone knew about this except for him. He’s never been friends with any upperclassmen and only has two lower classmen friends, Chenle and Jisung.

So now it’s the first day back to school and Jaemin wishes he didn’t have to go. There’s certainly going to be all the normal senior year in high school experiences, Jaemin knows that for sure. There’s just this added level of stress due to the fact that he could drop dead at any moment. Just lovely.

“Jaemin, are you all packed?” Jaemin’s mother walks in and Jaemin is quick to wipe away any evidence of him crying and focus on his suitcase which is still missing a few items.

“Nearly,” Jaemin replies, forcing his voice to stay even.

“Great, come down when you’re ready then.” Jaemin’s mom closes the door and he crumples to the floor. What on Earth will the school tell his parents? Jaemin can’t not let them know what happened to him, even though that would be breaking the number one rule of spy school— don’t tell anyone outside of these walls or another spy that you are a SIT, or spy-in-training. But whatever, Jaemin will be dead anyways so it’s not like it’s a huge deal to him. 

So he throws the last few things into his suitcase and drafts an email summarizing the last five years of his life. He schedules it to send the day after graduation since by then either he or Jeno will be dead. Sighing, Jaemin zips his suitcase and walks downstairs.

**MONTH NUMBER ONE: AUGUST**

“Attention students, may I please get your attention?” Mr. Lee asks. Taeyong Lee, otherwise known as TY, is the headmaster of Neo School for the Gifted and a successful spy himself. He’s not the one that started the school, but he holds the record for fastest killing of his partner during his time as a student. Mr. Lee isn’t retired, but most of his time is spent on the school which is obvious by his mild mannered nature.

“If you all don’t quiet down, I’ll cancel field trips for the next two months,” Mr. Suh threatens, stealing the mic away from Mr. Lee. Johnny Suh, nicknamed Chicago, holds a record of his own from his time in school; record for the highest final exam scores in history. He doesn’t give off the vibes of a nerd, but he takes everything seriously, so studies must be included in that.

Everyone shuts up and takes their seats. Jaemin hasn’t even looked at Jeno since he arrived, making a point to enter the auditorium alone. But they are seated by pairs, so Jeno is on Jaemin’s left. He bleached and undercut his hair over summer and it looks really good, and Jaemin would tell Jeno if he could. Jaemin knows that the second he looks at Jeno, that he’ll start crying.

“Thank you Mr. Suh,” Taeyong says, bringing Jaemin’s attention back to the front of the room. “Now before I welcome you all to your final year of school, I must address the elephant in the room.” Mr. Lee pauses. “As you all know, you will have to kill your partner by the end of the year in order to graduate. But there are a few rules that go along with that as this is still a school. You may not kill a student in your shared dorm, in this room, the cafeteria, the library or during class time. What you do outside or off campus during your breaks is up to you, but if you do choose to kill during your winter or spring break, do think it through and don’t get caught.”

So if Jaemin stays inside all year, Jeno can’t kill him? Great plan. Become a hermit to avoid killing the boy who helped him become a spy, realize his potential, and fall in love with. Yeah, that adds an extra hurdle to this. Jaemin is in love with Jeno. Not even like a crush sort of thing, Jaemin has been head over heels for more than two years and has a document on his phone about their fictional marriage. It’s sad and Renjun has been sure to tease him about it more than once, but Jaemin can’t help his feelings. If he could, there wouldn’t be an issue with him killing Jeno to begin with.

“I would also like to add that curfew still applies this year.” There’s a collective groan from the students and Mr. Lee glares at them. “Curfew is eleven pm to seven am, and if you make the mistake of being out of room after curfew, you can be killed.” That’s one way to make sure students stay inside— at least, it’ll work on Jaemin. He’s going to take advantage of every space that doesn’t allow for him to be killed. “I will also add that if you break any of these rules you cannot graduate and will be expelled.”

Jaemin drowns out what Mr. Lee is saying for the rest of the assembly. It’s all welcome back bullshit that Jaemin doesn’t have the stomach to listen to. He doesn’t understand how they can all pretend this is normal by any means. Fuck, Jaemin feels like he’s going to be sick. He knows he won’t because he’s been trained not to throw up unless the circumstances allow for it (a strangely useful skill), but that doesn’t mean he’s not nauseous.

“Might I also add that you cannot kill today, as it’s an adjustment back to school. Seven am tomorrow is the official starting time, so use this chance to plan out a good attack strategy against your opponent. Classes start at nine tomorrow as well,” Mr. Lee adds. Everyone stands then and repeats the pledge of spies like they do every morning.

_“I pledge allegiance to the code of spies, and to the unspoken code of honor for which it stands, unified under our oath to protect and serve to those who cannot protect themselves.”_

They all leave the auditorium after that and Jaemin tries to leave as quickly as he can, but Jeno catches his arm, forcing him to stay while other students all file out to get to their rooms. Since they are seniors this year, they get moved up to the fancy student dorms which aren’t attached to the main building of the school. Across a concrete path, there’s two buildings, one for male students and one for female students. Jaemin could easily point out how stupid it is to divide students, but that’s for another day— should he live to see it.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Jeno asks, looking hurt and Jaemin blinks at him in disbelief.

“Surely you’ve got to be kidding me right now?” Jaemin counters, yanking his arm out of Jeno’s hold. “It’s like you know nothing about me.” Before Jeno can reply, Jaemin storms after the other kids. He swallows back his tears and chooses to focus on the fact that since he was top of his class last year (along with Jeno), that he gets the nicest room in the male dorms. Rumor has it that Yeji and Lia were the best scorers among female students and if that’s true, Jaemin will certainly congratulate them both.

By the time Jaemin reaches the outside, he’s cooled down quite a bit. The grass which surrounds the concrete path still looks pretty dead from summer like no one has given it quite the right amount of water in a while. Jaemin takes in a deep breath and walks along the path towards the male dorms which sit right on the edge of the forest that surrounds the school. It feels a little bit cliché to have a spy school in the middle of the forest, but it allows for outdoor training and good practice in difficult environments.

“Jaemin!” Donghyuck nearly tackles Jaemin in a hug and Jaemin savors the feeling for a moment. “How was your summer?” It was spent crying over Jeno, thanks, Jaemin wants to reply. Because while that’s been true for a while in the in-love-with-his-best-friend sort of way, it’s taken on a whole new meaning this year.

“It was good, really relaxing to spend time with my family again,” Jaemin replies. This is also partly true, but Donghyuck doesn’t need to hear about Jaemin’s issues. “How was yours? Hunt any more polar bears?”

“I did actually,” Donghyuck says, gearing up to get into a whole rant about them by the looks of things and for a second, everything is normal. “My dad was very cool about the whole thing which doesn’t surprise me but my mom certainly looked at me weird when I brought home a pelt.” Donghyuck’s family is half spy and half not. His dad, a spy, fell in love with a normal woman who doesn’t carry the weight of the world on her shoulders most of the time, but they make it work. She had to be background checked at least a dozen times from what Jaemin has heard about her.

“I can imagine that must have been weird for her,” Jaemin adds in and Donghyuck nods. 

“I know she didn’t grow up with this, and she married in, but sometimes she really just doesn’t get it,” Donghyuck muses aloud. “I still love her though.” Jaemin chooses not to point out how he gets it a lot more than Donghyuck could even realize.

They reach the front doors of the dorms and split apart, Jaemin going up to the top floor, but hesitating in front of it. There’s only one room on the top floor and it’s a penthouse for him and Jeno to share, but Jaemin still doesn’t want to see Jeno. He sighs before opening the door, he’ll have to face Jeno at some point, so he might as well make a beeline to his room and open that point isn’t now.

Sadly, Jaemin is wrong as he tries to beeline towards what he assumes is his room, but Jeno steps out in front of him. Jaemin skids to a halt, looks at Jeno whose arms are crossed and looks annoyed. Sorry Jeno, not today. Jaemin moves to walk towards the other bedroom then but Jeno grabs Jaemin who elbows Jeno in the neck to get him to loosen his grip, but Jeno doesn’t let up and tackles Jaemin to the floor with a thump, pressing Jaemin’s wrists into the hardwood above his head and straddling his lap. This position is one that has occupied Jaemin’s thoughts many times, except Jeno normally leans down and kisses him instead of just normally restraining him.

“You aren’t allowed to avoid me,” Jeno mumbles. “I thought we were friends.” 

“Jeno,” Jaemin whines. “Why don’t you get it?”

“What am I supposed to get here?” Jeno counters. “At the end of last year everything was fine and now you’ve avoiding me like the plague.” Jeno frowns and Jaemin aches to pull Jeno close and tell him everything is going to be okay, but he can’t do that.

“I didn’t know about our… final assignment then,” Jaemin confesses. “I just turned seventeen years old, Jeno. I’m not ready to die.” Then it hits Jeno and he immediately looks guilty.

“I feel like I should have realized that,” Jeno mutters, he pulls himself off Jaemin and offers him a hand up to which Jaemin takes, if only for things to feel like normal. “What if I make a deal with you or something?”

“What?” Jaemin’s heart is already leaping into his chest despite not knowing what Jeno is going to say. Although, anything to alleviate the hurt in his heart would be good at this point.

“Lets make some extra rules for ourselves,” Jeno suggests. “For example, no killing over school breaks. Whatever you need to make this more bearable.” Sometimes Jaemin really wants to slap Jeno. This marginally better, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that one of them is going to have to kill the other in less than ten months.

“Alright, I like that first one,” Jaemin agrees. They both move to sit down on the couch and Jaemin is careful to keep some physical distance from Jeno even though last year he would have been nearly in Jeno’s lap, laughing and smiling with him. “I would also like to add that we need some days to just call time out. For example, right before exams or your birthday. As long as it’s clear ahead of time, we’ll be on timeout for a day.” Jeno nods.

“Perfectly reasonable. Let’s add no killing outside of school, that one is already a shaky rule and only exists so Mr. Suh’s kill can still be considered valid,” Jeno says.

“Wait what?”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Suh killed his partner outside school grounds the year they were considering making that against the rules. He was nearly caught, which only added to that, but since he was one of the top students they never changed the rule,” Jeno explains. “That’s what I’ve heard at the very least.”

“That’s wild, but I’d like to add one more thing,” Jaemin begins. “If you kill me, you have to go and explain everything— and I mean everything to my parents.” Jeno looks hesitant. “I know it goes against so many rules, but if you’re going to take away their only kid, it’s fair. They don’t get to know what I do all year, so they have no clue I’m even in danger at all.” Jaemin is close to tears, and Jeno sighs, clearly giving in.

“Alright, I will, but they can’t expect an all access tour to my life or something,” Jeno concedes. “Let’s shake on it.” Jaemin nods and holds out his pinky finger. Jeno lifts up his and they interlock. Something shifts in the room and Jaemin feels a little bit more like himself for a brief moment before Jeno lets go.

** MONTH NUMBER TWO: SEPTEMBER **

The first month is still rocky between the two of them. Neither one has made any moves on each other, but they can’t say the same for their friends. Yeji has already killed Lia, before Jaemin even got the chance to congratulate her on her test scores. Renjun and Donghyuck try to kill each other nearly everyday with varying levels of sincerity. Chenle and Jisung seem to have no issue with the killing and even joke about helping the other’s partner kill the other. Chenle is a year younger than Jaemin, so his partner, Sungchan, is who he’ll have to kill, not Jisung. Which seems a bit unfair in Jaemin’s opinion. Chenle and Jisung are just as close and him and Jeno yet they don’t have to rip each other’s throats out.

But Jaemin says nothing, choosing to swallow down any rude comments he’s thinking. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else to treat everything like this is the worst thing in the world. Jaemin is somehow the only one even a little bit torn up about this, which only makes him want to run away from school even more. He could technically do that, but he’d never be able to become a spy and doesn’t have a legitimate high school diploma ,which makes him less inclined to run away.

“Jaemin, are you even listening?” Renjun asks, waving a hand in front of Jaemin’s face at lunch.

“Yes, definitely listening,” Jaemin replies on instinct even though he has no idea what they were even talking about.

“Then you heard how there’s students from last year who are coming back to be TA’s for classes, right?” Jaemin nods, even though the idea of students from last year makes him nauseous. He really doesn’t want to be given a lecture on how to kill someone from people who have. Even though all the staff who went here did it too, it feels worse since it’s recent.

“I heard Yukhei is coming back,” Donghyuck squeals. “He better be just as dreamy as I remember him or else I’m going to be disappointed.” Ah yes, Yukhei Wong, called by Xuxi with close friends. A complete dreamboat with the looks, personality and grades that one could only dream of. And if Jaemin weren’t in love with Jeno, he probably would have caught feelings for Yukhei, had he been able to even get close to him.

“He’s probably only gotten hotter,” Chenle points out. “Now he’s a full on spy which means he’s doubly hot automatically.”

“You’re so right,” Donghyuck agrees. “That's the only reason I find Mr. Suh attractive at all.” Jisung makes a barfing sound next to him and Donghyuck swats at him. “Just because you don’t like anyone doesn’t mean you get to shame the rest of us.”

“I’m only shaming you,” Jisung corrects. “Because Mr. Suh is not good looking and he’s an actual adult which makes him less attractive. He’s old enough to the point where he’s no longer a cool, slightly older guy like Yukhei— he’s married and probably is going to adopt a kid sooner or later.” Donghyuck’s shoulders slump.

“You’re right, that makes him sound much less hot,” Donghyuck groans.

“On a completely different note,” Renjun interrupts. “Where’s Jeno?” The attention turns back to Jaemin who sighs. 

“I have no idea where he is, I only have second period with him, not third, for all I know a witch kidnapped him,” Jaemin replies. Part of him assumes the worst and their careful tip toeing around each other is over and as soon as classes end for the day, Jeno is going to try and stab him. Not literally, Jeno doesn’t specialize in knives— that’s Jaemin’s specialty. 

“Witches aren’t real,” Chenle brushes off. “But yeah, if he’s not here, he might be studying or something.”

“Chenle, most people think spies aren’t real,” Jaemin counters. Chenle gasps and slaps a hand over his mouth. Donghyuck bites back a laugh and Jisung snickers.

“Witches are real!” Chenle exclaims and the whole table (even Jaemin), bursts out laughing. The bell rings and Jaemin looks down at his food, realizing he barely took two bites of it. That’s what he gets for thinking about Jeno during lunch again. But it’s fine, he has extra snacks in his dorm and dinner will be in a few hours. He dumps his lunch tray and heads off to fourth period, his favorite class of the day, Weapons Training.

Weapons Training is a general sort of class that allows seniors to brush up on their skills after having just spent two previous years honing in mastery of a specific one. This unit is all about knives, so it’s easy for Jaemin and quite a bit of fun compared to his class on disguises. 

Jaemin walks into his class, and sees no one but Yukhei Wong standing in the front of the room. He looks over at Jaemin, who feels himself flush because yeah, Donghyuck was right, Yukhei is twice as hot as he was last year. And because this is Jaemin’s favorite class, he sits right in front, giving him a perfect view of Yukhei’s body in a skin tight black bodysuit. Sure, it's so he can do spy stuff easily, but it’s still totally drool worthy in Jaemin’s opinion.

Yukhei looks Jaemin over, but doesn’t walk over before class starts. Jaemin isn’t dressed up nice or sexily, he’s wearing his normal dress of a tee shirt and easy to move in sweatpants. Practicality before fashion, but now Jaemin wishes he at least wore the sweatpants that make his butt look less flat.

The teacher goes into a lecture about different types of knives and Jaemin zones out. He already knows this, and clearly so does Yukhei as he won’t stop taking glances at Jaemin. Jaemin feels flustered certainly, but he feels almost guilty due to being in love with Jeno. Though something prods at the back of his mind. Jaemin is seventeen, has never had his first kiss, and while he dreamed of it being with Jeno, Jeno is now trying to kill him, so it’s not like he’s inclined to even want to kiss Jaemin.

Ultimately, Jaemin decides that if he could possibly manage to get together with Yukhei, he should go for it. Screw being in love— life is short. It feels especially shorter when there’s a timer hanging above Jaemin’s head.

When the teacher is done lecturing, he has everyone file out to the practice room. He gives a quick note about safety, but then allows for practice for the rest of class. Good enough for Jaemin. He takes the Zwilling J.A. Henckels Mungsten Damast 8" Limited Edition Damascus Chef's Knife and looks it over in his hand.

“Hey,” Yukhei says and Jaemin’s head snaps up. “I noticed you weren’t paying attention in class. Do you need some help practicing?” Oh, smooth. Jaemin refuses to let himself to succumb to his homosexual urges and straightens up, prepared to have some fun with Yukhei.

“Yeah, I really want to get good at throwing,” Jaemin replies and Yukhei smiles.

“Well, the knife you chose isn’t really for beginner throwing, but let me at least see where you’re at.” Jaemin smiles at Yukhei and leads him over to the throwing range. There’s the outline of a person twenty feet away along with special netting on either side so Jaemin can’t hit another student if he has bad aim. Yukhei comes up behind him and looks over his form. Jaemin purposefully has sloppy form just for this and thankfully no one has come up to them to wonder why Yukhei is even bothering to correct Jaemin.

“Am I doing something wrong?” Jaemin asks innocently.

“Can I adjust your form a bit?” Yukhei bites his lip. “You’re really close to being correct, but a few little adjustments will make throwing a lot easier.” He’s like a puppy and Jaemin can’t help but be endeared by him.

“Of course, adjust away,” Jaemin replies with a laugh. Now Sunwoo and Eric have walked over and are looking at Jaemin curiously. He shoots them a look when Yukhei is adjusting his leg and the two of them snicker. Sunwoo and Eric are both partners and while they aren’t close to Jaemin, he certainly enjoys spending class time with them as they also specialize in knives.

“Alright, now you're perfect,” Yukhei says once he’s finished. He looks over at Eric and Sunwoo and furrows his brows. “What are you two doing?”

“We want to see if Jaemin has improved,” Eric responds easily. “He’s been working really hard to improve his throwing, so we just want to encourage him.” 

“Yeah, we already know a lot about knives so a few minutes over here isn’t really taking anything away from us,” Sunwoo adds. Jaemin is so close to bursting out laughing, but swallows it back. Yukhei nods and takes a few steps back from Jaemin.

“Okay whenever you’re—” Jaemin doesn’t wait for Yukhei to finish and throws his knife at the paper outline, nailing it directly in the center without issue. He turns around and puts his hands on his hips, looking at Yukhei who’s shocked. “I suppose I should have seen this coming.” 

“You are a spy after all,” Jaemin teases, liking the way Yukhei’s cheeks turn just the slightest bit pink. “But I’m pleased I at least got to fool you a bit.”

“And why is that?” Yukhei asks, trying to regain some of his composure.

“Because you’re cute when you blush,” Jaemin retorts like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. This only makes Yukhei more embarrassed. Sunwoo and Eric have thankfully disappeared by now, so Yukhei makes sure that the teacher isn’t nearby before pulling Jaemin to the side.

“You’re a flirt, much more than I expected,” Yukhei begins. “But would you like to go out with me? I’m here as a student advisor or whatever all semester and you’re the prettiest guy I think I’ve ever seen.” Jaemin is surprised at Yukhei’s forwardness. Is this how guys act in the real world?

“I’d love to go out with you,” Jaemin says. “You seem like you’d be fun to get to know.”

“Great, it’s a date.” 

* * *

Word spreads quickly about Jaemin and Yukhei dating. Mainly because Yukhei starts sitting with them at lunch and Donghyuck can’t keep his mouth shut. But Jaemin doesn’t really care. Except when Jeno starts being distant to him. 

So it’s not a surprise when Jeno makes the first attempt on Jaemin’s life. He can tell it isn’t that sincere as Jaemin is walking to the dorm to get something for a study session with Renjun when a knife lands next to his head.

Jaemin turns around and looks at Jeno, pulling the knife out of the wall. If he wanted, he could kill Jeno right here and right now. It doesn’t matter that Jeno has four other visible knives. Blades aren’t Jeno’s specialty in the slightest. 

“So what’s this about?” Jaemin asks. He doesn’t move to go inside even though that would make him safe from any attacks. “What made you decide to actually start attacking?” Jeno doesn’t answer, looking visibly angry, but not at Jaemin. “Yeah, alright.” Jaemin throws the knife back at Jeno, purposefully having it only graze his ear. Jeno doesn’t grip his ear or do anything to stop the blood, so Jaemin only turns around and heads inside.

**MONTH NUMBER THREE: OCTOBER**

Jeno makes several other attempts at Jaemin, but none of them are with guns, Jeno’s specialty. It’s not like he doesn’t have access to them or something. Jeno literally keeps a gun under his pillow, just in case, along with several others in their penthouse.

There’s another knife attempt, one with poison, and one where Jeno tries to strangle Jaemin. Jaemin thankfully still keeps up his knowledge on Jeno, including all of his weak points. So during the struggle, Jaemin busted Jeno’s nose and managed to escape with only light bruising.

That one was yesterday, so when Jaemin and Jeno sit down to lunch, Renjun and Donghyuck give them both suspicious looks. Yukehi joins them a few minutes later and no one says anything about it. Everyone merely makes conversation about classes and upcoming midterms.

“Okay, I can’t take it,” Chenle says, interrupting Donghyuck who glares at him. “Who did what?” There isn’t a question to what Chenle is referring to even though Jaemin wishes there was.

“Jeno, would you like to explain?” Jaemin asks sarcastically. He’d never say anything, but the attempts are really starting to get to him. The image of Jeno he had in his mind is shifting and he can’t decide if he’s okay with it or not. Jaemin takes another bite of food and laces his hand together with Yukehi’s.

“I tried to strangle Jaemin, but he broke my nose instead,” Jeno mutters. While Jaemin and Jeno are both tops of their class, it’s always been Jeno who has a slight edge on Jaemin simply from being raised to be a spy from such a young age. In everything except knives, Jeno would score one point higher or they’d get the same score. Surprisingly, rivalry didn’t foster between them. Instead, they grew close and decided to dominate everyone else rather than compete with each other as it’s basically pointless. This is why Jisung gasps and Donghyuck slaps his hands down on the table. Jaemin clearly took less damage than Jeno as the bruises are already fading quickly while Jeno’s nose and cheek bones are purple with bandages over the top.

“I don’t believe it,” Renjun says. Jaemin revels in the praise. It isn’t directly to him, but he’s surpassed their expectations which is basically the same thing in his book. 

“I don’t get why you are all surprised,” Yukhei adds on. “Jaemin is strong and capable, so why wouldn’t he be able to defend himself?” Jaemin preens and presses a quick kiss to Yukhei’s cheek. He still hasn’t kissed Yukhei on the mouth yet, but today might just be the day.

Jeno looks like he’s about to burst a vein and storms off. Part of Jaemin’s heart yanks at that, but another, stronger part, doesn’t care at all and is even happy that Jeno is being bratty. That will make it easier to actually try and kill him. Everyone is surprised by Jeno’s outburst, but Jaemin doesn’t let it drag the mood down. He livens up the mood pretty quickly and lunch passes in a breeze.

In fourth period Jaemin actually has to pay attention, as they’ve switched units to traditional weaponry, specifically bows and arrows, katanas, and swords. The katana is hard for Jaemin to get a grip on, but bows and arrows are another thing entirely.

Yukhei spends most of the class helping Jaemin improve, which requires close contact. It’s decently intimate even though Jaemin keeps getting annoyed at his lack of perfection with a bow and arrow. But by the end of class, Jaemin is hitting the center of the target more than he isn’t.

“Are you doing anything after classes?” Jaemin asks. He’s mildly sweaty and a bit flushed, but Yukhei doesn’t seem to mind as he stays close to Jaemin.

“I have nothing else going on,” Yukhei says cheekily. “Did you have something in mind?”

“Yeah, meet me outside my sixth period because I’d like to take you back to my dorm.” 

“Ooh, the fancy penthouse I hear so much about,” Yukhei replies and Jaemin giggles. “Last year, one of my friends, Dejun, got it. He’s actually going to be here next semester to help out.” 

“How exciting,” Jaemin says. “But I have to get to fifth, so see you later.” Jaemin presses a quick kiss to Yukhei’s cheek and heads off to class. There’s something strange about feeling perfectly safe during parts of the day, but unsafe during others. 

Jaemin’s sixth period is Poisoning & Other Subtleties, which might be his least favorite class. There isn’t a TA, so no one fun to talk to and the professor is super strict about when they are actually allowed to use poisons. It’s also a class Jaemin shares with Jeno. They don’t sit anywhere near each other, but Jaemin constantly finds his gaze drifting forwards towards Jeno’s desk. He can’t even see what he’s working on but he still has this urge to check in on him.

Shoving that aside, Jaemin focuses on his notes. He’s been thinking about how to attempt on Jeno, and even though that’s an unpleasant thought, it’s one he has no option but to have. Yukhei seems like a logical resource for Jaemin, but he knows nothing about how Yukhei killed his partner and isn’t sure if that would be a sore spot still. Poison seems like something that Jaemin could pull off. Jeno wouldn’t expect it as Jaemin is much more about the drama. Something where Jeno walks into a trap, is flung upside down and then his head is crushed like a watermelon sounds like Jaemin. But that image is upsetting for a variety of reasons.

Without realizing it, Jaemin snaps his pencil from force. Jaemin’s desk partner, Yangyang looks at him strangely. Jaemin doesn’t have time for this. He’s about to pull another pencil out of his bag, but Yangyang slides one across the table without him even needing to ask.

“Thank you,” Jaemin whispers. This teacher is also strict about talking which is decent, except if a student talks, the teacher lightly poisons them. Nothing major, normally just a rash or stronger acne, but Jaemin doesn’t want to risk something like that.

“You’re welcome,” Yangyang whispers back. There’s nothing but the scratching of pencils and pens against paper for a few minutes, the teacher making them copy down a slide about the pros and cons of cyanide. Once he starts rambling on again, Yangyang gets Jaemin’s attention. “Can I ask for your help about something?”

“About what?” Jaemin keeps his eyes focused forward and moves his mouth as little as he can. Even though he sits in the back of the room, it’s better not to be sorry.

“I don’t know how to kill my partner,” Yangyang says. Well Yangyang, Jaemin doesn’t know that either. 

“Why are you asking me? I haven’t killed Jeno yet,” Jaemin replies. He doesn’t like saying ‘yet,’ but it would be suspicious if he didn’t say it.

“You have to kill the other top student in school, no one was really expecting either of you to succeed quickly,” Yangyang points out. Alright, fair enough. Even still, it’s October and probably five percent of students are dead. Throughout September everyone was super on edge and unsure, except for Yeji who took that time to strike.

“Well, what do you want to know?” Jaemin asks. 

“What would Shotaro least likely see coming?” Jaemin feels his throat tighten. He’s not particularly close to Shotaro either, but he has some fond memories of him helping him study for their Disguises final last year. So it hurts when Jaemin decides he should give actual advice because giving shitty advice could mean that Yangyang is killed and that would feel partially like his fault. If he stays neutral and allows for anyone to ask him for tips, then he’d feel the least guilty.

“If you dress up well, then go undercover and do something that works at close range, but that he won’t have time to recover from,” Jaemin whispers, forcing himself to sound strong. Shotaro specializes in long range weapons and assassinations, so he won’t expect Yangyang to come up close. And well, there was a reason they both had to study for their disguises final. 

“Thanks, I owe you one.” Jaemin nods, feeling a bit empty inside for the rest of class. He waits for Jeno to leave who eyes him suspiciously. Jaemin wants to say that he’s going to be busy making out with Yukhei, so Jeno has no reason to be suspicious. That would be kind of a dick thing to do, but Jaemin still wants to.

Jaemin exits the classroom and immediately lights up when he sees Yukhei. Yukhei pulls Jaemin in for a hug and offers to take his backpack, which Jaemin hands over.

“Oh what a gentleman you are,” Jaemin teases. Yukhei takes Jaemin’s arm in his and they walk back to Jaemin’s dorm. Both of them are careful to look out for Jeno, just in case. Thankfully, they don’t see him at all and nothing terrible happens to Jaemin as they are walking.

Jaemin opens the door to the penthouse and Yukhei wolf whistles while Jaemin just rolls his eyes, sure the place is nice and all, but it’s just where he lives. There’s more space than in the normal dorms which makes it easier to hide out in, but other than that it isn’t super special.

“This place is sick,” Yukhei says, looking around. “But I gotta ask why we’re here instead of going off campus or something for a date.” 

“Well,” Jaemin begins. “You know how I said I hadn’t had my first kiss and I really wanted my first one to be special?” Yukhei’s eyes widen and Jaemin all of a sudden feels hot under the collar. Why is this so nerve-racking to talk about?

“Yeah, and it’s cute how much you value it,” Yukhei adds on. 

“I think I’m ready, and I wanted it to be here, so I would be able to relax,” Jaemin explains.

“That makes perfect sense,” Yukhei replies. “Do you want me to dramatically carry you to your bedroom or what? I’m going to make this as special as I can and nothing is off the table.” Jaemin smiles and looks at Yukhei. He’s sure there’s hearts in his eyes because Yukhei is the sweetest and most caring guy ever. Jaemin truly feels himself falling for Yukhei which has given him another reason to live.

“Okay, why not? Romance me to my bed.” Yukhei picks up Jaemin bridal style and carries him back to Jaemin’s bedroom, not bothering with the door. He places Jaemin softly on top of his bed, the two of them locking eyes. There is nothing but the two of them in that moment. Jaemin’s breath catches in his throat as Yukhei leans a bit closer, resting his arm on one side of Jaemin. 

Yukhei connects their lips and Jaemin feels warm everywhere. It feels like something out of a Disney movie— Jaemin being kissed by his Prince Charming. Jaemin kisses back, cupping Yukhei’s cheek. They break apart, noses brushing as Yukhei pulls away.

“Was that a good first kiss?” Yukhei asks, voice barely above a whisper. Jaemin nods eagerly.

“More than good,” Jaemin replies. “I want to do nothing more than kiss you all afternoon.” 

“I don’t have any plans…”

“I don’t either.” Jaemin kicks off his shoes and sits up onto his elbows. Yukhei does the same and climbs in between Jaemin’s legs. Despite having no idea what he’s doing, Jaemin feels safe in Yukhei’s arms. Yukhei cages in Jaemin with his arms and rests slightly above him. Jaemin wraps his legs around Yukhei’s waist, pulling him closer. 

“You can call me Xuxi,” Yukhei says quietly. Jaemin pushes back Yukhei’s hair from his eyes and smiles. 

“Okay, Xuxi.” Yukhei looks bashful before Jaemin pulls him in for another kiss. They stay like that for ages, both of them enjoying the touch and warmth of the other. Jaemin feels nearly dizzy from all the kissing and lets Yukhei kiss lightly along his neck while he catches his breath. “Jeno?”

“I’m not Jeno—”

“Jaemin?” Yukhei pulls away from Jaemin who drops his legs from around Yukhei’s waist. Jeno stands in the doorway of Jaemin’s bedroom, looking shocked. They all stare at each other for a moment until Jeno snaps out of it and walks away.

Jaemin sits up and pulls himself into a crisscross applesauce position. He leans against the headboard and looks at Yukhei. Yukhei sits with his legs hanging over the edge of the bed and looks at the floor.

“That was awkward…” Yukhei mumbles.

“You could say that again,” Jaemin replies. “I had a lovely time with you though.” 

“I’m glad you did.” Yukhei lets his hand slide across the bed towards Jaemin, who interlocks their hands. Lifting Jaemin’s hand, Yukhei presses a quick kiss to the back of it. “I think I need to get going though.”

“Yeah, have a good evening, Xuxi,” Jaemin says and Yukhei smiles before climbing off Jaemin’s bed and leaving the penthouse. For a few minutes, Jaemin practically expects Jeno to barge in and lecture him, but he doesn’t, so Jaemin turns to his school work until he’s tired enough to fall asleep.

** MONTH NUMBER FOUR: NOVEMBER **

The first half of November is mostly uneventful. More kids die, but no one who Jaemin knows or is close to, so it doesn’t affect him as much. Though the constant reminders of what could happen manage to keep Jaemin on his toes. He still hasn’t decided how he’s going to get the poison he needs to kill Jeno. In order to lessen the chances of Jeno figuring out what’s going on, Jaemin plans to break into his teachers office and steal one of the poisons they aren’t taught about.

Jaemin knows exactly which one will do the job— Pentatag. There’s no way Jeno will even have any knowledge about it as Jeno doesn’t study outside of the curriculum. Jaemin on the other hand, will start studying things he doesn’t even need to know because he’ll get sucked into the material. Hence why Jeno has a slight advantage on him as well. He just spends a bit more time on the material even though they technically have the same study hours.

Anyway, plotting aside, Jaemin is outside for lunch today. It’s a surprise even to himself. The weather is chilly, but it’s one of the last days before it starts to snow, so Donghyuck insisted upon them, and a few others to eat outside. Yukhei is busy with TA stuff, so Jaemin sits next to Jeno like normal and there’s much less tension between them without Yukhei there. They’ve both agreed to be civil during lunch for Donghyuck’s sake at least.

So it’s them, Renjun, Chenle and Jisung like normal, but Shotaro, Yangyang, and Soobin have joined them as well. Renjun looks rough, but Jaemin chooses not to comment on it. He assumes it has something to do with why Donghyuck’s ear is wrapped in bandages and he doesn’t want a repeat of him and Jeno.

“Thank you all for joining us,” Donghyuck says, standing on top of the bench to make a point. “I’m aware that the weather is taking a turn for the worse, but since we will not be here next year, I thought it was important for us to all take in autumn one last time.” There’s a double meaning to Donghyuck’s words. Half of them will be spies out in the field and half of them will be six feet underground. As seriously as Donghyuck is taking killing Renjun, he clearly still has some humanity left in him.

“Okay, time to sit down now,” Chenle mumbles, pulling on Donghyuck’s sleeve who sticks his tongue out at him, but nonetheless takes a seat.

“Fine,” Donghyuck whines. “I wanted a longer moment, but there’s only so much that I get.” They all start eating and chattering about things, but then something feels very very wrong. Jaemin can’t place it on anything more than intuition, so he looks over at Jeno who isn’t doing anything suspicious.

“Jeno,” Jaemin whispers, leaning in. “We agreed not to do anything today, right?”

“Yeah, why are you asking?” Jeno asks.

“Something feels very wrong,” Jaemin replies. He glances around the table and then it hits him. Yangyang is sitting next to Shotaro on the opposite side of the table to Jaemin and Jeno. There’s nothing Jaemin can do before Yangyang stabs Shotaro in the neck. His aim is perfect and it's a quick death if nothing else, but blood shoots out all over Yangyang, Jeno and Jaemin. It hit the others as well, but they are the three that look like they stepped out of Carrie.

Jaemin has been trained to handle blood, but he hasn’t been prepared to handle seeing someone he knows killing another person in front of him. It’s always different when it’s dummies or people that Jaemin doesn’t know. He doesn’t like it, but it’s a part of being a spy. Jaemin always assumed he would be able to handle it, but he can’t. Not like this.

There’s nothing but white noise in his brain when he shoots off away from the table. He doesn’t pay attention to how anyone else reacts, instead beelining for the trees. Lunch is still going on, so Jeno won’t try anything, but Jaemin doesn’t think he’d even care if he did. The image of Shotaro laughing then him bleeding out all over the lunch table replays in his mind over and over. 

He reaches the edge of the woods, but stops when he sees Sunwoo and Eric. Sunwoo has a gun pulled on Eric and is saying his last goodbyes. Eric doesn’t make a move to run or stop him which Jaemin doesn’t understand. The trigger is pulled and Jaemin can’t stop himself from looking. More blood and guts on the floor. Direct shot to the brain, so no pain for Eric, but Jaemin still feels nauseous. He backs into the shadows of the trees, not allowing Sunwoo to see him. Sunwoo wipes his eyes, takes a breath, puts the gun in his pants and leaves like nothing happened.

Jaemin feels Shotaro’s blood start to cake into his skin and feels like crying. He can’t take this. He thought he could, but it’s too much now. The tears come without him realizing. Slumping back against a tree, Jaemin cries silently.

“Jaemin?” Looking up, Jaemin sees Jeno who is either the best or worst person for him to see right now depending on how this goes.

“Just kill me now and get it over with,” Jaemin sobs. “I can’t do this.” Jeno drops to his knees and comes to sit next to Jaemin.

“I’m not gonna do that,” Jeno says. “It wouldn’t be fair to you.” 

“None of this is fair,” Jaemin hisses. “Only the most ruthless people get to be spies and I’m clearly not cut out for it if I’m here crying like a fucking baby. I don’t know how everyone else reacted, but certainly not like this.” 

“You’re right,” Jeno replies. “I don’t make the rules though, I just follow them.” Sometimes Jaemin wishes Jeno were more of a rule breaker. “And you’re not like everyone else which isn’t a bad thing.” Jeno takes Jaemin’s hand in between both of his. “Getting blood shot out all over you isn’t really fun for anyone, you’re just the only one who is okay with having feelings about things like that.”

“But if I’m supposed to be a spy, I shouldn’t,” Jaemin protests. “I’m serious, kill me right now. Everyone knows you’re gonna win anyway.”

“Jaemin, I’m not going to kill you now and who’s saying that you’re gonna lose?” Jeno asks, putting a hand on Jaemin’s shoulder. 

“You are always slightly ahead of me in everything, wouldn’t it make sense for you to win? You’ve also been groomed since a young age that being a spy is what you’ll do,” Jaemin says. “It’s your destiny.” Jeno stumbles at that and Jaemin can see that he’s hit some nerve. “You know my parents are expecting nothing from me. They think I go to a fancy school because I’m smart, not that I’m being trained to save the world.” 

“I…”

“And I’ll never be able to tell them. What if something were to happen to me on the field? Yours would be sad, but at least they would know that you didn’t die in vain,” Jaemin points out. “Mine are going to get some vague reason that has been used time and time again. Or maybe they’ll tell my parents I stepped on a rake.” Now isn’t the time for humor, but Jaemin can’t help it.

“Shut up!” Jeno exclaims. “I can’t take you talking about yourself like this.” 

“Oh you can’t take it? Where was this energy when you tried to strangle me?” Jaemin asks, shoving Jeno’s hand off him and standing up. “You can’t have it both ways and I’m tired of trying to relieve some of this tension. Either we are trying to kill each other or we aren’t; pick one.” Jaemin stands over Jeno who’s staring at his knees.

“I’d rather not, but—”

“Pick one.” Jaemin stands there for a moment before letting his hands fall against his sides. Jeno doesn’t say anything. “That’s what I thought.” 

** THANKSGIVING BREAK **

“I can’t believe I’m really here,” Yukhei says, bubbling with excitement. “The Na residence.” 

“You’re here because you’re my boyfriend and I thought you’d have fun with me over break. You didn’t sound like you had any other plans, so spending it with people who will treat you like family seemed nice,” Jaemin replies, trying not to get flustered. He told his parents in advance that he wanted to bring his boyfriend home with him and they were more than pleased that Jaemin is finally letting them meet someone from school. 

There’s also a bit more to it than that. Since neither of Jaemin’s parents are spies or even really aware of youth spy programs like Neo School for the Gifted, he was essentially told that he can’t have anyone over who may compromise him or else he would be expelled. Yukhei has already graduated and there’s a timer on Jaemin’s life, so he doesn’t care nearly as much as he would any other year.

On top of that, Yukhei seems to have pretty absent parents. Both are full time spies that had a kid on accident and decided to not give up either of their careers for him. Not that parents even need to, but Yukhei was raised to be a spy and that was the only future where he would get any of his parents praise or attention. When Jaemin looks at him like that, he can see how he could have killed his partner. He also sees a strong similarity to Jeno in him. While Jeno was never forced into being a spy and his parents were both around, there certainly was this pressure on him to become a great spy like his parents before him. Different environments, but same outcomes.

Speaking of Jeno, Jaemin was worried about the state of their deal. They hadn’t spoken since Shotaro’s death, not even sharing a look with each other. And that was over a week ago, so by extension Jaemin hasn’t talked to Donghyuck, Renjun, Chenle or Jisung. He misses them all, but it’s okay because when break is over, he’ll give them all a huge hug. Provided, Jeno doesn’t decide and break their rules to kill Jaemin in his sleep at home. The likelihood of that is quite low, but Jaemin doesn’t want to risk anything, which makes keeping Yukhei around doubly helpful.

Jaemin’s parents greet Yukhei with hugs and even though Yukhei is taller than both of them, he lets himself be coddled all the way to the living room. His bags are left in the hallway, so Jaemin makes the move to take his and Yukhei’s upstairs so as not to clog the hallway. Jaemin grew up on a twin bed, so Yukhei will be staying in the guest room, but it’s not like they would be rooming together anyway if Jaemin’s parents knew they were dating.

Once the suitcases are where they need to be, Jaemin takes a few seconds to look over his room. Hopefully he’ll be back here in three weeks, but he doesn’t know that for sure. All of the unknowns drive Jaemin just a bit crazy.

“Jaemin?” Jaemin turns around to see Yukhei. “Your parents already love me which is great, but then they disappeared to wrap up dinner, so I went to see where you went.” Yukhei steps into Jaemin’s room and takes a look around. “So this is your room.”

“Yep,” Jaemin replies. There’s a smattering of posters over light beige walls, a desk stacked with books he’ll likely never finish, stuffed animals and a twin sized bed in the corner next to the window with plaid sheets. There’s nothing particularly unique about Jaemin’s room in his opinion. Most pieces of information that anyone could get from the set up are things that Jaemin would just tell people.

“I like it,” Yukhei muses. “It’s very you.” Jaemin raises an eyebrow at that. “Trust me. It’s the vibes.”

“Alright, I will.” Jaemin crosses the room to pull Yukhei in for a hug. Something about being home again makes Jaemin ridiculously soft, so hugging seems like a perfectly logical thing.

“Can I ask you a question?” Yukhei asks.

“You just did,” Jaemin says. “But yeah, go ahead.” 

“Why did knives become your specialty?” Yukhei is careful to keep his voice low which Jaemin appreciates.

“They didn’t become my specialty by choice actually,” Jaemin confesses. “I had to, how else would I shave? My skin is quite delicate you know.” Yukhei laughs and Jaemin shoves his head into Yukhei’s chest.

“But you only shave your face, so why would that be that big of an issue?” Jaemin forgets that Yukhei hasn’t seen him without long pants on.

“I shave everything because it makes me more aerodynamic,” Jaemin replies matter of factly.

“I can’t tell if you’re kidding or if this is true anymore,” Yukhei confesses.

“Take my pants off and find out.” Jaemin is only joking and Yukhei knows it, but he still laughs again and presses a kiss to the top of Jaemin’s head.

“Sure thing, buttercup.” Buttercup isn’t a nickname that Jaemin ever really thought he would enjoy, but hearing it from Yukhei’s mouth, makes him reconsider in a heartbeat.

“Dinner’s ready,” Jaemin’s mom calls.

* * *

Over break, Jaemin spends most of his time with Yukhei in pajamas, but they do escape Jaemin’s parents in the middle of the week and go for a walk together throughout Jaemin’s neighborhood. Jaemin doesn’t want to say that Jeno lives nearby for fear of jinxing it somehow, but he keeps them away from Jeno’s block which should be good enough.

“Can I talk to you about something kind of serious?” Yukhei asks, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat. There’s a light sheen of snow on the ground and his nose is a pretty pink from the cold air.

“Yeah, of course,” Jaemin replies. He pulls his beanie down tighter over his head and looks up at Yukhei.

“I’d like to give you some tips with Jeno,” Yukhei says. “I can’t kill Jeno for you— because I know you really don’t want to, but I can help prevent him from killing you and give advice. That’s not against the rules explicitly.”

“Really?” Jaemin weighs it over in his head. Yangyang was successful with Shotaro because he took Jaemin’s advice. Even though the memory of Jaemin covered in blood still isn’t a fun one. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea then because while I really don’t want to, I don’t think I have another option. My family has no clue and I don’t want them to lose their only kid y’know.” 

“I completely get it,” Yukhei agrees. “So tell me what you were thinking already and we’ll work from there.” Jaemin tells Yukhei about his idea with the Pentatag which Yukhei approves of. But before Yukhei can give some constructive criticism, Jaemin spots Jeno who’s on a jog and coming this way. He’s not paying any attention, but Jaemin really doesn’t want to see him, so he shoves Yukhei into a nearby bush and jumps in after him.

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin whispers. “But be quiet for like forty seconds.” Yukhei doesn’t question Jaemin, but gives him a strange look. After forty five seconds, Jaemin peaks out of the bush and sees Jeno is out of sight. “Okay, climb up now.” Jaemin gets up and pulls Yukhei up who brushes the snow off his shoulders. 

“Gonna explain that?” Yukhei asks.

“I saw Jeno jogging by and we haven’t spoken since Shotaro’s death, so I panicked,” Jaemin explains. Yukhei nods slowly. “Yeah, I know it’s not the most mature reaction, but surprise, Jeno lives nearby.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Yukhei asks. “We didn’t need to go for a walk.”

“Well, I wanted to and I didn’t think that Jeno would be outside,” Jaemin confesses. “He’s the one that got me into Neo School for the Gifted to begin with which is why we live near each other.” 

“Wait— how did he get you in?” Jaemin sighs. “They normally don’t let other students get people in.”

“You’re right, but it was like forever ago and the two of us were friends, but Jeno mentioned he was going to have to switch schools and I was like that's sad, can I come with you? Because that’s how kids are.” Yukhei nods. “Right, so Jeno basically gave me crash course spy training and then made Mr. Lee assess me. Jeno had given me all the skills needed ahead of time, so Mr. Lee was like okay, I’ll accept you to spy school. I didn’t even know I was going to spy school, I just thought I would get to be closer with Jeno. But look at me now.” The explanation is a mess and Jaemin tries to smile his way through it.

“This actually makes a lot of sense,” Yukhei says. “Like it explains a lot about why you are the way you are. And I just want you to know, the spy world needs more people like you in it.” 

“Thank you, Xuxi,” Jaemin replies, feeling his heart ache to kiss Yukhei, so he does.

**MONTH NUMBER SIX: DECEMBER**

Yukhei is leaving at the end of the semester in two weeks, but the last week of school is finals, so Jaemin basically has one week left with him. They decided that it would make sense for them to break up once the semester ended because if Jaemin doesn’t succeed in his plan, then he’ll quite possibly be the one who ends up dead and it isn’t fair to Yukhei being far away and not knowing if that happens. But if Jaemin manages to graduate, Yukhei says he’ll happily spend the summer with him. And that’s good enough for Jaemin.

There’s only so much that Jaemin can really expect to get from the first boy he dates. But Yukhei helped him strategize a plan over the remaining days of Thanksgiving break and now Jaemin is just waiting for an opportunity to strike. The two of them agreed to have Jaemin get help from Renjun, the only kid in Jaemin’s friend group that has the same teacher for poisons. Renjun agrees without any fuss which Jaemin finds surprising, but chooses not to question.

Renjun and Jaemin decide that the easiest time to steal the Pentatag would be right before finals at night after curfew. It’s a foolproof plan as Renjun is one of the best lock pickers in school. But that night is not tonight. Tonight, Jaemin is cramming as much knowledge into his brain so he can pass his finals. Yukhei is doing stuff with the teacher as well which will be working as a set up to give Renjun and Jaemin easier access to the Pentatag. Even though Yukhei isn’t his actual TA, the teacher knows Yukhei from last year fondly.

“Jaemin can I talk to you about something?” Jeno asks. They weren’t exactly on speaking terms, but Chenle made them both sit down at lunch when they got back to school and things became a bit easier from then. But tonight they were both on the couch, looking over textbooks quietly. Or it was quiet until Jeno started talking.

“Yeah, what is it?” Jaemin highlights another part of his notes before putting the cap on his highlighter.

“I want to tell you something about Yukhei,” Jeno says. “I know you brought him home over break, so I dug a little bit into his time at school.”

“You went digging into my boyfriend’s life because I took him home to meet my parents,” Jaemin repeats. “Wow, great.”

“You pushed him into bushes when I was jogging, so I got curious if there was a reason you didn’t want me to see you two together,” Jeno corrects.

“I didn’t want to see you,” Jaemin counters. “We weren’t talking as you may remember.” 

“Yeah, I know, but can I just say what I found out? Then you can go back to ignoring me,” Jeno says. Jaemin sighs. He wants to know what Jeno has to say, but he also doesn’t really like finding things out about Yukhei this way.

“Okay, fine,” Jaemin relents, moving his text book to the side of him and looking over at Jeno who takes a deep breath before continuing.” 

“Just to be clear, I wouldn’t be saying this if it wasn’t something I thought you should know. I saw how you reacted after Yangyang killed Shotaro.” Jaemin’s heart drops. He doesn’t want to think about that day any more than he already does, but he bites his tongue. “Last year, Yukhei’s partner was a kid named Mark. They were also close friends and apparently had a similar sort of deal that we did. Except Yukhei didn’t follow it. He took advantage of Mark’s every weakness and slit his throat right after he finished all of his finals, dead tired and excited to have completed his semester. There were plenty of other kids around and Yukhei dropped Mark’s body on the ground, not caring that he was gone.” 

Jaemin stares at Jeno for a moment. Part of him isn’t surprised by Yukhei being so cutthroat about everything, no pun intended. But it feels like a repeat of what Yangyang did to Shotaro. Jaemin has no idea what Mark looks like, but suddenly he sees Yangyang at lunch, but it's Yukhei and suddenly everything shifts for Jaemin. Before, he could disassociate Yukhei from the fact that he killed someone, but now he can’t.

“Why are you telling me this now?” Jaemin asks. “If you’ve known since break, why not tell me the day we got back and not two days before finals?” It feels like an underhanded trick, but it’s not to kill Jaemin. It’s to make him dislike Yukhei, but Jaemin doesn’t understand why.

“Now is the first time I felt like I could,” Jeno says, but Jaemin knows that’s a bunch of bullshit. He’s unintentionally making it easier for Jaemin to break their own deal. It had been Yukhei’s idea after all, but now Jaemin is okay with it. All Jeno is trying to do is to sabotage them, but Jaemin can’t fathom why.

A teeny, tiny, microscopic part of Jaemin is brought back to his feelings for Jeno. Jeno hasn’t done anything to wrong him directly like that. Well except for the five murder attempts. That breaks the moment for Jaemin. He can’t love Jeno because Jeno is only ever going to hurt him.

“Thank you for telling me. I think I’m going to get some shut eye early tonight,” Jaemin mumbles, emotions becoming overwhelming.

* * *

“Ready?” Renjun asks and Jaemin nods. They’re standing right outside of the poisons classroom, decked out in black and prepared just in case things go wrong. Jaemin hasn’t told Renjun or anyone about his conversation with Jeno the night before because what does he even say? The vibes were off and Jaemin isn’t sure that Renjun would understand why it got under Jaemin’s skin so much.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Jaemin replies, shoving away any thoughts of Yukhei or Jeno for another time. Renjun kneels down and picks the lock to the classroom. No alarm sounds, but that’s not surprising because there’s nothing special about any classroom right from the beginning that makes them need to be secure. Any important materials, like weapons or poisons in this case, might have some sort of protections on them though, but it depends on the teacher. 

The door clicks open and Renjun holds it open for Jaemin who makes a beeline to the back cupboard. There’s a much more complex lock on this which looks discouraging, but Renjun walks over, clicking the door shut behind him and examines the cupboard for a second before pulling out a screwdriver and removing a side panel on it. So it seems that their teacher isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. Jaemin pulls out the Pentatag with no trouble at all. 

Jaemin leaves the classroom since he’s the one with the actual stolen item, while Renjun returns things to normal. They meet up outside the school building and walk side by side back to the dorms.

“Good luck on your finals,” Renjun says.

“Thanks,” Jaemin replies. “I know you’ll do great on yours.” When they reach the outside door to the dorms, they both pull off their ski masks and split apart to go to their separate rooms. Jaemin doesn’t want to risk Jeno finding the Pentatag, so he slips it into a special pocket in the pants that Renjun lent him. None of the substance will end up on his skin, but now it's in a place that Jeno won’t look.

Jaemin opens the door to the penthouse quietly. He looks around for any sign that Jeno is awake, but there’s nothing. Though, even asleep Jaemin wouldn’t trust him not to notice the door. The lie that Renjun had helped Jaemin plan ahead of time was that he snuck out to spend time with Yukhei, which is a pretty believable lie because Jeno hasn’t seen Jaemin since dinner and Yukhei made sure to leave more than a few marks on his neck right after that.

Just to test his theory, Jaemin steps on the floorboard that he knows is creaky and waits to see if Jeno springs out of nowhere. He doesn’t, so Jaemin walks the rest of the way to his room. There’s a light under Jeno’s door, but either he fell asleep with the light on or he doesn’t care that Jaemin snuck back home in the middle of the night, and Jaemin isn’t sure which option he prefers.

** WINTER BREAK **

It’s hard to look Jeno in the eyes in the final days before winter break, but Jaemin makes himself do it. He pretends everything is the way it has been, and while that still means treading on ice around each other, Jaemin is careful not to overdo it.

They say goodbye to each other along with the rest of their friends. Everyone promises to have lots of fun during Christmas and any other holidays they may celebrate, but it feels bittersweet to Jaemin. This is the last time the six of them will be together.

Or at least, that was the plan. Jaemin spent the first few days of break researching Jeno’s habits, until he found the best way to poison him. And the easiest option was at his house. Jeno is the only one in his family that drinks green tea in the morning, so as long as the poison goes in there, then Jaemin is set.

Breaking into the house of two spies however wouldn’t be easy. But one day, Jeno’s parents and presumably Jeno all leave for some sort of family thing. Jaemin gives a lie to his parents about going for a walk around the neighborhood to look at all the Christmas decorations and they’re set.

Jaemin breaks into the Lee home with no trouble and slips the Pentatag into one of the tea bags on the top of Jeno’s container of them. It’s a light powder, so it’ll sink in no problem. Jaemin is ready to leave, but then he hears footsteps on the stairs.

“Mom?” Jeno calls, still sounding groggy. Fuck fuck fuck. Jaemin has to hide. Now. So he throws himself into the pantry and hopes that Jeno doesn’t also want cereal for breakfast. “Huh?” Jaemin hears Jeno walk into the kitchen and he holds his breath on instinct. Jeno doesn’t say anything, but there’s sounds of him making tea and Jaemin’s heart begins to race.

The Keurig machine heats up and Jeno hums some song under his breath, moving about the kitchen, grabbing a mug and a tea bag. Jaemin can hear everything so much clearer than he can see, but it still hurts him a bit. He remembers days of drinking tea at Jeno’s house over summer, not liking the taste, but drinking it anyway since Jeno liked it.

Jaemin sucks in a breath. It’s barely there and he almost doesn’t hear it himself, but for a moment he thinks he’s fucked up and freezes again. Jeno leans against the counter and stirs his tea for a moment. One sip is all it would take. One sip and Jaemin is free. Jeno lifts the cup to his lips, but doesn’t take a sip. He sets down the cup and pours it down the drain. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Jaemin, come here,” Jeno says. He doesn’t turn his head towards Jaemin because he doesn’t need to, he knows exactly where Jaemin is. Jaemin sighs, he really thought this was going to work. Breaking the truce is a low blow to Jeno, but it was supposed to work. So Jaemin pushes open the pantry door and walks until he’s next to Jeno. “Why did you try to poison me?” Jeno tilts his head so he’s looking at Jaemin and their eyes meet. He doesn’t look outwardly hurt, but Jaemin can read between the lines. This is a serious betrayal. Jaemin doesn’t reply and Jeno reaches down to grab one of Jaemin’s hands, holding it between both of his like that afternoon in the woods. “You clearly tried based on the fact I can’t even tell what kind of poison is in that cup.” 

Jaemin wants to yank his hand away from Jeno, his hold burning Jaemin’s skin, but instead, he only turns his eyes to the floor. He takes a deep breath, tears pooling in his eyes before saying, “I wanted this to be over.”

“Wanted?” Jeno repeats. Jaemin’s voice catches in his throat. He wishes he were anywhere else but here. “You need to talk to me.” 

“Why?” Jaemin asks, voice watery. “Talking will only make this worse. I’d rather you see me as some failure than—” Jaemin has no idea where he’s going with that sentence, so he stops. Jeno’s grip on him tightens.

“I’m serious,” Jeno growls. “There’s something more here and there has been since the beginning of the school year. What is it?” Anger fills Jaemin’s veins and he pulls his hand away, burning feeling subsiding as he slowly turns his eyes up towards Jeno.

“I’ve been in love with you for over two years.”

That’s certainly one way to completely shift the mood. The room turns cold and Jeno stares at Jaemin unblinking. Jaemin can tell he suddenly wishes he didn’t know. No matter how much Jaemin pushes his feelings away for Jeno, they keep coming back, but now they are thorny and tend to hurt Jaemin more than any attempt on him has.

“Jaemin…” Jeno trails off.

“Yeah, I already know what you’re thinking,” Jaemin says. “You can pretend that I didn’t even say that because I’m gonna get rid of myself at this point. I can’t fucking take this anymore.” Jaemin moves to leave Jeno’s house, unsure of where to go now, but Jeno grabs his wrist again. “What do you want?”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Jeno admits.

“Well I don’t want to kill you either,” Jaemin replies. “So where do we go from here?”

** MONTH NUMBER SIX: JANUARY **

Where they go from there is back to normal. If going back to normal means pretending it's last year and they are best friends again, but they can’t fake it all. The physical affection comes back, but Jaemin can’t stop crying. Him and Jeno will be curled up on the couch and then Jaemin will simply begin to cry. He can’t help it and Jeno can’t do anything but hold him closer.

Jeno doesn’t love Jaemin back and he knows it. But it’s not something that Jaemin is concerned with. He has no desire to date or kiss Jeno despite his feelings for him. There’s no point in developing something real at this point. 

Their fragile sense of normalcy doesn’t apply in front of others though. Outside of their dorm, they don’t touch or really speak to each other. No one says anything as everyone’s mood is down a bit. Soobin’s partner, Gowon, killed him over break and it's just too real right now.

Yukhei was right though, his friend Dejun comes to TA for poisons class. That class has taken on a whole other meaning for Jaemin as he keeps staring at Jeno during class like normal, but he can hardly handle being less than ten feet away from Yangyang. It’s every time that they are near each other that Jaemin sees Shotaro. Over and over. It’s starting to take a toll on his emotional health as he’s started to wake up in the middle of the night, screaming for Yangyang to stop. 

So now, with eyebags and without the ability to study, Jaemin feels forced to ask for a seat change from Dejun. He really doesn’t want to in case Dejun asks for a reason, but at the very least, he’s Yukhei’s friend so he should be understanding.

Jeno gives Jaemin a strange glance when he doesn’t immediately leave the classroom. Jaemin was expecting the teacher to get angry about the missing Pentatag, but he hasn’t noticed yet, so Jaemin thinks he’s in the clear at least.

“Excuse me, Dejun,” Jaemin says. Dejun turns away from the papers on his desk and looks up at Jaemin.

“What can I do for you, Jaemin?” Dejun asks. Jaemin is surprised Dejun knows his name already, but that puts them off to a good start. 

“I would like to move seats.” Jaemin watches Dejun’s expression for anything, but nothing changes.

“May I ask why?” Jaemin’s gut swirls with anxiety. Does he tell the truth or does he lie? A stronger part of him pulls him towards the truth.

“I gave Yangyang advice on how to kill his partner last year and then he did it directly in front of me,” Jaemin confesses. “I’m aware I should be able to handle that, but it was made especially worse by the fact that some of his partner’s blood landed on me and I wasn’t aware that that was when Yangyang would do anything.” Jaemin’s hands are shaking, so he takes two deep breaths, staring down at Dejun’s papers rather than looking into Dejun’s eyes.

Dejun calls out the name of the professor and there’s no answer, so he sighs. Jaemin’s eyes flick back up to Dejun, fearing the worst. But that’s not what happens at all.

“Look,” Dejun begins. “I can move your seat, but you clearly have PTSD from that incident and you’re far too young to have shit like that. Last year, as you know, I had to kill my partner, Hendery. He was a dear friend and it broke something inside me then. As soon as he was dead I wished it were me.” Jaemin opens his mouth to say something, but Dejun holds up a hand. “I’m only here because I need to be and I want to start making a difference in how spies are trained. There’s no reason that you should have to kill someone you love. Part of me wished that I could throw everything away but that would have meant Hendery died for nothing.”

“So what now?” Jaemin asks. “I can move seats, but what about the bigger issue here?”

“Who’s your partner?”

“Jeno Lee.” Dejun clicks his tongue and looks at Jaemin.

“I know that one. He’s an ace if I’ve ever seen one. But I’m sure that you must be much of the same to be partnered with him. Especially considering how neither of you are dead.” Dejun doesn’t say ‘yet’ and that somehow makes Jaemin’s heart race. Maybe there’s a way out of this terrible system. “I don’t know how serious the attempts have gotten between you two, but you might be able to find a work around here.”

“Like what?”

“One of you fakes your death,” Dejun suggests. “Personally, I’ve wanted revenge on Taeyong and Johnny for over a year now. It’s them that make the rules on this. Change their mind, through persuasion or force, and you’ll save some of this year’s students and all of next years.” Jaemin thinks of Chenle and Jisung. He would hate to see either of them die in their efforts to become a spy.

“Okay, I’ll think about it,” Jaemin replies, voice tight. The easiest thing would be for him to fake his death. Honestly, Jaemin doesn’t think he could convince Mr. Lee and Mr. Suh to change a tradition that’s been going on for years and years at this point. It’s older than both of them, and Jaemin isn’t sure what the fallout would be from adults in the spy world. But Chenle and Jisung… 

“And don’t worry, I’ll change your seat.” Jaemin nods and leaves the classroom, ready to go curl up into a ball back on his bed.

* * *

Jaemin closes the door to the penthouse behind him and leans back against it, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to himself there. It’s when he hears Jeno clear his throat that he opens his eyes.

“What was that about?” Jeno asks. 

“I asked to change seats in poisons,” Jaemin replies, hoping that will be the end of it.

“Do you want to tell me why?” Jaemin bites his lip. He does want to tell Jeno, he wants to tell him all of what Dejun said, but it might be too soon to do that.

“I can’t sit next to Yangyang anymore because I keep seeing Shotaro and it’s really getting to me,” Jaemin confesses. That much isn’t unreasonable, Jeno already knew that Jaemin was affected by Shotaro’s death. Jeno lets out a breath and takes a seat on the couch.

“Would you like to sit on the couch with me then? I’m sure that can’t have been an easy thing to tell Dejun,” Jeno says and Jaemin nods, nearly collapsing onto the couch. Jeno’s arms come around him and pull him close. Jaemin wants to cry, but he doesn’t let himself.

“Thank you,” Jaemin whispers.

“Anytime.” 

* * *

It’s nearing the end of January and Jaemin makes the mistake of oversleeping. Jeno told him the night before that he had to meet one of his teachers early in the morning for something. Jaemin shoots out of bed and throws some clothes on without even brushing his hair, hoping to make it to class quickly.

But Jaemin runs into Dejun on the grass, still covered in snow. There’s no one else around, but Dejun is near tears and Jaemin pauses to see if he can help him.

“Dejun?” Jaemin calls and Dejun’s head snaps up towards him.

“I really should have heard you coming since I’m a spy after all,” Dejun says with a watery laugh. “That’s a joke, I’m just emotional today.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Jaemin asks.

“Not really,” Dejun replies. “Today is the one year anniversary of Hendery dying, so I’m taking the day off and going to pay my respects.”

“Would you like me to come with you?” The words are out of Jaemin’s mouth faster than he can think them. He’s missed five days total since coming to Neo School for the Gifted. One in the very first week as a special sort of orientation class. Two in his third year when his grandma died and his parents took him to her funeral. And two last year when Jeno and Jaemin got the flu and couldn’t even get out of bed.

“I would actually. I can excuse you for the day on special assignment in the office. Besides, you don’t seem like the type to skip class a lot, so I’m sure Johnny won’t say anything.” Something about Dejun using Mr. Suh’s first name jars Jaemin. He did it before when they spoke, but it’s still just as strange.

“Great, then let's go,” Jaemin says. He’s not sure how he’ll take to Dejun’s grieving process, but it seems like the two of them have a lot more in common than Jaemin had originally thought. The two of them walk silently into the main office building, any evidence of Dejun crying disappearing once they step foot inside the building.

“I’m looking for Johnny,” Dejun says and like a ghost Mr. Suh appears from his office. If Jaemin wasn’t looking towards the door he wouldn’t have heard anything, but that’s part of being a spy and all.

“Yes, Dejun?” Mr. Suh rests his elbows on the front counter and even though none of his attention is on Jaemin, he still feels a shiver run down his spine. Yeah, there’s no way he could convince Mr. Suh of anything, let alone speak to him without fear.

“I would like to take Jaemin out on a special assignment today. He’s doing well in all of his classes and I think the experience would benefit him,” Dejun explains casually. He speaks to Mr. Suh like he isn’t the entire reason Dejun is here, as TAs must be approved by him. Mr. Suh looks over at Jaemin, eyeing him up and down.

“Alright, but if possible have him back before dinner,” Mr. Suh replies and Jaemin forces himself to stay strong.

“Thanks.” Dejun guides Jaemin out of the main office and out the front doors of the school. Jaemin lets out a breath once they are back outside and Dejun looks at him. “I see Johnny scares you quite a bit.” It’s an observation and not an accusation, but Jaemin still refuses to meet Dejun’s eyes.

“Maybe.” 

“Have you given any more thought to my proposals?” Dejun asks and Jaemin sighs. He really didn’t want to think about this, but he thinks he does have an answer at the very least.

“I think I need to fake my death,” Jaemin says. Dejun leads them along the sidewalk outside of the school to the parking lot where his car is. “I can’t even look Mr. Suh in the eyes, and while Mr. Lee might be easier to talk to, I don’t think I can convince either of them of my case.” The only consolation Jaemin has about Chenle and Jisung is that they aren’t paired together. He knows both of their partners, Yeojin and Sungchan, but he isn’t close to them and chooses not to think about either of them dying. It’s a small and selfish comfort, but it’s all Jaemin has with this option.

“Okay, would you like my help in pulling that off?” Jaemin weighs the option as they climb into Dejun’s car. He sits in the passenger seat, careful to touch as little as he can on instinct, crossing his hands in his lap.

“No,” Jaemin replies hesitantly. “If anything goes wrong, I don’t want to risk you getting jeopardized, so I won’t tell you any details of things ahead of time, same with Jeno since someone would assume that it was him helping me fake it if I’m caught.”

“Yeah, you still graduate even if something happens to your partner,” Dejun says. “Last year there was this kid, Yeri who was partnered with her sister, Jiwoo.” Dejun takes a deep breath. “Yeri decided that she couldn’t kill her sister, so she killed herself instead in March.” Jaemin sits there in shock for a moment.

“And Jiwoo graduated?” Jaemin clarifies.

“Yeah, she graduated, but she doesn’t work in the field due to her developing PTSD,” Dejun explains. “That’s something they never tell you about. Plenty of people who graduate, don’t get to go into the field because they can’t handle it. But no one cares because only the successful ones make the rules.”

“That’s awful.” Jaemin honestly feels sick to his stomach. He looks out the front windshield, hoping that staring at the skyline will help calm him down.

“I don’t tell you that to make you upset,” Dejun begins. “I’m telling you because I want you to know that there are other people like you who have struggled with this.” 

“Yeah, you’re totally right. It’s helpful to hear that some other people have been through this before, even though I don’t want to end up like them,” Jaemin replies. 

They lapse into silence and Jaemin keeps squeezing his hands together until Dejun parks the car inside Home of Peace Cemetery. Jaemin climbs out of the car and lets Dejun lead him through the cemetery. At the top of the hill, overlooking the whole city there’s a section of graves all with a similar symbol on them.

“Is that a religious symbol?” Jaemin asks. It’s an upside down half moon in a circle, but doesn’t look like any religion that he knows.

“That’s the symbol placed on the graves of fallen spies. Students who are killed during their final year get it too,” Dejun explains. “This is the first row of students from when Neo School for the Gifted began.” Jaemin looks at the dates on the headstones. They are all from over fifty years ago. Jaemin can only imagine what it must have been like for those first students who would have been just like him and have no clue about what the future would hold for them.

“These are from so long ago,” Jaemin comments and Dejun nods.

“Yeah, I visit here every other month when I can because there’s far too many people and most of the families don’t bother to visit their graves. Even the younger ones.” Jaemin wants to ask why, but Dejun starts off in a beeline towards some point. They reach the final row of graves and Jaemin feels his stomach leap up into his throat. It’s not like he really knew any of the students in the year above him, or of what they did to each other, but his gut still twists at the names.

“Why don’t people visit?” Jaemin finally asks, he’s near tears, but he has to know.

“Because as you may know, most spies marry other spies. That’s considered the norm and there’s only a few who marry normal people, and even less students who neither of their parents are spies,” Dejun starts, voice breaking near the end. “And to those who were raised through this system, they view the kids who couldn’t succeed as failures.” 

At that very moment, Jaemin catches sight of a familiar name on one of the graves. There’s snow on the top of it and the dead grass beneath it, but it still stands out. Mark Lee. Born August 3rd, 1999 and died December 23rd, 2016. That’s the final straw for Jaemin. They haven’t even reached Hendery’s grave yet, but Jaemin drops to his knees in front of Mark’s headstone, sobbing

Dejun doesn’t say anything, only putting a comforting hand on Jaemin’s shoulder as he sobs. Jaemin knocks the snow off of Mark’s grave and stares at it. There’s an inscription beneath his name that he hadn’t noticed yet. ‘I loved you like a brother and I’m sorry to see you go - X.’ Jaemin didn’t think he could cry harder, seeing the message from Yukhei makes his chest heave. 

“How are you friends with him?” Jaemin asks. He knows that he full on dated Yukhei, but the separation of who he was as a student and who he is now is one that Jaemin made until Jeno’s reveal. Dejun doesn’t get the luxury of being able to make something like that. He would have seen first hand just how Yukhei acted.

“You dated him,” Dejun points out. “But I’m friends with him because I know that he has a completely different sort of pressure than I had. I’m sure you know some about his family, but Yukhei really didn’t have an option. He could live and win the affection he never got, or die without his parents ever telling him that they were proud of him.” Jaemin’s insides tie into a knot. He saw why Yukhei did what he did, but he could never imagine that being him.

“I didn’t know that last bit,” Jaemin says, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Were they at least proud of him after the fact?”

“Yeah, they were. Yukhei is their only child for obvious reasons and now they make time for Yukhei because he’s earned it or whatever. Seeing his parents once a week over dinner is what drives him to be a good person,” Dejun explains. “I know he probably didn’t go that far into it with you, and I know you’re broken up, but I think you should know as much context as I can give you.” 

“What was Mark like?” Jaemin asks. It’s a dumb question to ask because he only knows that it’s going to rip him in two, but he has to know.

“Are you sure you want to ask that?” Dejun double checks. “You’re a bit of a mess right now and this is only going to make you feel worse.”

“You said you want to give me context, so give me context,” Jaemin mumbles, still staring at Mark’s headstone.

“If you say so.” Dejun clears his throat and comes to sit next to Jaemin in the snow. “Mark was what I would call marshmallow. He was immensely talented, even if he wasn’t the top of our class and always had this can do attitude that motivated everyone around him. He threw all of himself into being the best spy he could be because he genuinely thought that he would get to do good. He had a healthy home life with two loving parents, which is partly why he was such a kind and happy person.” Dejun takes a deep breath in. “I was never his best friend or anything but he always said hi to me in the halls and asked for study tips since me and Hendery were top of the class but he never wanted to capitalize off of our knowledge or anything.”

“He sounds lovely,” Jaemin says, more tears coming out of his eyes.

“He really was,” Dejun agrees. “I actually saw him right before Yukhei did on the day he died. We had Espionage for our final class that day and Mark felt so good about how he did, he gave me the biggest high five and smiled at me. I knew he had been up all night by the bags under his eyes, but that didn’t make him any less happy. He left the classroom before me and I walked out of the building right as Yukhei slit his throat.” Dejun is crying by this point, so Jaemin puts an arm around his shoulder.

“Take your time,” Jaemin whispers, breath visible.

“No one else will tell you this, but I saw something shift in Yukhei right after that. He never spoke to me about Mark’s death or anyone. Like there’s a reason he killed Mark like that but no one but him will ever know that. Last summer when we were being interviewed by Johnny, Yukhei was still like that. Just off. But we met up a few times over the semester and I saw him change. It’s not like he’s properly handled Mark’s death, but you were some sort of light in his life along with his parents becoming less busy after summer.” 

“Huh?” Jaemin blurts out. “I didn’t do anything though, he was nice from the beginning.”

“Yeah, but I can’t really explain it to you because you didn’t know him last year, so just trust me,” Dejun says.

“Okay, I will,” Jaemin replies. He’s gotten a hold of himself temporarily and they haven’t even reached the main reason why they’re here in the first place. “Oh man, we should probably stand up though.” 

“Yeah, I’m here for a reason.” They both stand and Dejun leads Jaemin twenty graves down to Hendery’s. Dejun doesn’t cry immediately. For a moment, the two of them merely stand there and look at the headstone. Jaemin isn’t as compelled to cry, but it still hurts to look.

“Do you want to tell me about him?” Jaemin asks quietly. He isn’t sure if Dejun wants silence or to talk. “But no pressure.” 

“Hendery is to me as to what Jeno is to you.” That sends a shock through Jaemin’s body and he gives Dejun a strange look who lets out a laugh without looking at Jaemin. The laugh is one of pain and sorrow, sharp and uncaring. “I knew you’d react like that, but it’s true. We were the tops of our class, knew each other for years and I had feelings that turned romantic, but refused to confess them. The only difference is I pulled the trigger and you haven’t.” 

“How did you…” Jaemin never mentioned his feelings for Jeno. Yes, they were sat together in poisons, and Dejun knew about Jaemin’s inability to kill him, but where did he get romantic feelings?

“It’s pretty obvious, Jaemin. I have no idea how he hasn’t said anything to you.” Dejun dabs at his eyes. “It’s always the pairs that have a bond tighter than friendship which struggle the most. And while that isn’t always romance like with Yeri and Jiwoo, from what I’ve seen it’s true,” Dejun explains. “Because if you’re not close with someone it’s easier to go through with. There’s certainly moral stuff that goes into it, but keep that in mind this year when you see who’s holding out.” Jaemin’s mind turns to Donghyuck and Renjun. They had certainly tried to kill each other, but Jaemin wasn’t there for any of the attempts so he has no idea how much either of them tried really. He just assumed they were doing their best, but he hasn’t heard anything about them fighting for a while now.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Jaemin looks at Dejun and swallows back his fear. “And I tried to kill Jeno over winter break, but I failed. He told me something about me had changed and I confessed my feelings.” Dejun looks at Jaemin, shock in his eyes.

“You did what?” Jaemin furrows his eyebrows, unsure why Dejun is freaking out. “That’s not good.”

“Why?” Jaemin asks. “I couldn’t have lied in the situation.”

“He now knows the power he has over you,” Dejun says. “I know it might not seem like a lot, but be cautious here. In the month leading up to finals, Yukhei was extra kind to Mark and didn’t make any attempts on him. I’ve seen this happen before, and even though Mark wasn’t in love with Yukhei, it's the same tactic.”

“I really don’t think Jeno would do that,” Jaemin defends, despite knowing how Jeno had been acting. “We’ve basically been back to how we used to act with each other, he’s not hitting on me or anything.” Dejun sighs.

“Please trust me here,” Dejun begs. “If his actions are making you want to kill him even less than before, be cautious. Once you fake your death, you can live and it’ll all be okay, but you just can’t let him kill you first.” Jaemin doesn’t like how Dejun might actually have a point.

“Okay, I’ll be safe.” 

** MONTH NUMBER SEVEN: FEBRUARY **

Jaemin finally figures out how to fake his death in the next two weeks. He has a plan and he’s almost ready to enact it. Valentine’s Day seems like the best day since everyone will be busy paying attention to their partners and being romantic and gross while Jaemin will be taking a long walk into the woods. 

That’s the easiest way not to get caught because lots of people go into the woods and then are never seen again. It isn’t unreasonable that Jaemin might get tired of school and go into the woods to never be seen again. 

Drafting a suicide note isn’t fun, so Jaemin has been putting that off until it’s the day of. He’s in poisons again and wants to say some sort of final goodbye to Dejun and to thank him for everything, but that requires staying after class again, which made Jeno suspicious before.

Not to mention that Jeno pestered him a lot about what he and Dejun did on their so called special assignment. Jaemin told Jeno that they went to a spy in training thing that Yukhei recommended to them and Jeno dropped the issue. Something about mentioning Yukhei, made Jeno shut up pretty quick. Maybe he doesn’t get why Jaemin still speaks fondly of him, and to be honest, Jaemin isn’t sure why he can still view Yukhei slightly positively. After that afternoon in the cemetery, Jaemin both disliked and liked Yukhei more. He couldn’t see himself getting back together with him, but he couldn’t quite make himself hate Yukhei.

“Do you need something, Jaemin?” Dejun asks once everyone has left the classroom including the teacher. Jeno once again side eyed Jaemin on his way out, but Jaemin will deal with him later. 

“Yeah, I actually just wanted to say thank you. For being a cool TA and a really nice friend,” Jaemin says. There’s a look of something in Dejun’s eyes and Jaemin knows why he looks that way. Dejun’s put the pieces together.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Dejun replies. “I wish you the best of luck with your studies and plans for this afternoon.” Jaemin nods, throat feeling tight. He does have one other thing that he’s been wondering for awhile.

“Why do you call Mr. Suh and Mr. Lee Johnny and Taeyong?” Jaemin asks and Dejun raises a brow.

“That’s not the kind of question I really expected from you, to be honest,” Dejun begins. “But it has to do with how little respect I have for either of them. Though if you ask Johnny or Taeyong they will say the opposite.” Jaemin doesn’t quite get what Dejun means but he chuckles and shuffles through some papers that are next to him.

“I don’t get it.”

“Someday you will.” With that, Dejun disappears back into the lab to clean up or something and Jaemin walks back to his dorm room.

Surprisingly Jeno is nowhere to be seen when Jaemin walks in the door. He assumes that Jeno might be off studying with Donghyuck or something, but he hears a sound from Jeno’s room. Well, Jaemin might as well pack up the few things he can take with him now. Nothing more than a backpack full though or else someone will notice that things are missing. 

Jaemin doesn’t bother with his computer, but does grab his emergency supply of cash from under his bed. No one knows it's there, not even Jeno, so no one will notice if it goes missing. Then a few photos of family and friends that Jaemin printed last week. He puts the things in his backpack along with an extra winter coat and a few snacks. That should be enough. All Jaemin has to do is walk through the forest and stay there for a day or two days and then leave. As long as he isn’t caught on camera, it should be fine.

The route in his mind is clear, but he doesn’t review it on a computer because that will tie him to leaving. No one is to have a clue about this. So there’s only one step left besides actually leaving. The note.

Jaemin keeps his note concise, citing that he simply can’t take the pressure to hurt someone he loves so much anymore. And it hurts to write because Jaemin really does feel that way, but he doesn’t want to end his life at all. He feels like he has some potential to help the world and doesn’t want to waste that. 

With a sigh, Jaemin folds the piece of paper in half, unnerved as hell, writes Jeno’s name on the outside and takes a peek outside his door to look for Jeno. He’s not in the main room, so Jaemin grabs his bag and drops the letter on the coffee table for Jeno to see tomorrow. It’s gonna hurt, but it’s the easiest option.

Jaemin slips out the door easily and heads out of the dorm without a single look back. The snow leaves tracks which isn’t really what he wants so he walks along the concrete a bit before walking into the forest. Once under the cover of trees, Jaemin takes a moment to appreciate nature. It’s lightly snowing and snowflakes land on Jaemin’s face as he walks. Eventually he’ll come across a clearing where he’ll need to move East, but for now he keeps dredging ahead.

About maybe a third of a mile into the forest, Jaemin hears a voice yelling. He can’t make out the voice at all, so he looks around for a place to hide. There’s only up to go, so Jaemin pops his gloves off and channels his tree climbing skills from childhood to get up into the tree. But he only makes it ten feet up before the voice is much closer.

“Jaemin, what the fuck are thinking?” Oh, Jeno. Jaemin can’t see Jeno as he’s currently staring down a tree from less than four inches away, but he hears the hurt in his voice. “I’m serious, get down here.” Reluctantly, Jaemin climbs back down the tree and looks at Jeno who’s in his pajamas and not dressed at all for the weather.

“Why did you come out here?” Jaemin asks. He slips his backpack off and pulls out the extra jacket in his backpack. Jeno looks at him strangely when Jaemin holds it out to him. “Take it.” 

“Fine.” Jeno takes the jacket and slips it on. “Why do you even have an extra coat with you?”

“I wasn’t actually going to kill myself,” Jaemin says. “I was gonna fake my death, so you didn’t have to kill me.”

“Why—”

“Come on, Jeno,” Jaemin interrupts. “What do you think is gonna happen when one of us dies? The other one isn’t gonna be okay. Dejun thinks I have PTSD from Yangyang and honestly? I agree with him. I haven’t been able to get over Shotaro’s death and I wasn’t in love or even friends with him.” Jeno stands there, speechless for a moment and Jaemin just looks at him. “I was trying to give you the easy way out here.” 

“How is me thinking you’ve committed suicide any better than me killing you myself?”

“Do you even hear yourself?” Jaemin counters. “If you said that to any normal person they would think you’re out of your mind. Because you were raised like this you think it’s completely normal and it really isn’t. It’s fucking crazy what they do to us.”

“What other option is there?” They keep asking each other questions, but won’t give the other any answers. Jaemin leans back against the tree and sighs.

“There is something Dejun mentioned to me,” Jaemin begins and Jeno’s eyes light up. “If we convince Mr. Suh and Mr. Lee to change their minds, then there no longer has to be a rule to kill your partner.” 

“Not to be a downer, but I don’t think we could do that,” Jeno says. “This has been going on for fifty years, so you’re not going to convince them using morals.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that. But what if we could convince them by force?” Jaemin watches Jeno’s reaction carefully. Blackmailing the top two school officials is against the school rules or obvious reason and if Jeno even says that Jaemin suggested something like that, he could be thrown out of school. 

“Assume we somehow get information that they don’t want people knowing.” Jeno shoves his hands in his pockets. “Why won’t they just threaten to throw us out of school if we don’t shut up?”

“Because we would still come forward with it,” Jaemin replies. “At least, I will. If I’m going to be thrown out of school, I’m bringing as much of this down with me as I can. I’m sure local reporters would love this.” Jeno looks skeptical.

“And what if there’s nothing on them that’s bad enough?” Jeno asks.

“Then I don’t know what, but there’s literally no other option here. I don’t mind taking the fall should things go south,” Jaemin prefaces. “But I can’t do it completely by myself and I don’t know who else I can really ask.” 

“Yukhei…”

“He doesn’t go here and I don’t even know if he would support this idea.” Jaemin doesn’t elaborate as Jeno has no right to any personal details of Yukhei’s life, but Jeno doesn’t push. 

“I’m still not sure about it.” 

“We don’t need to do it tonight, I’m just saying we need to do it sooner rather than later.” Jeno nods and sucks in his lip, taking one hesitant step forward.

“You really scared me y’know,” Jeno begins, taking another step. Jaemin has no idea where Jeno is going with this, but he’s going to let him keep walking forward. “It got me thinking just how much I would miss you if you were gone.” Another two steps. Jeno is only two feet away from Jaemin now and he’s wondering where exactly Jeno is going with this. “And then it hit me.” 

“What did?” Jeno’s now eight inches away from Jaemin and not making any motions to move away. 

“I think I like you too.” The words hit Jaemin like a tsunami, the words that he’s dreamed of hearing for years are now coming out of Jeno’s mouth. But Dejun’s warning echoes in his brain. Though why would Jeno get him vulnerable only to chase after him when Jaemin was going to make everything so easy for him? “I know it’s not love yet, but I know it could be.” There’s that word ‘yet’ again, making everything feel so much more real.

Jaemin lets out a slow breath and reaches out to Jeno, hands coming to hold his waist. Jeno’s hand pushes Jaemin’s blue bangs out of his eyes, drifting down to cup his cheek. His other hand latches onto Jaemin’s shoulder, locking eyes with him before connecting their lips. Fireworks blast off behind Jaemin’s eyes, butterflies explode in his stomach, his toes tingle— every cliché phrase used to describe a kiss applies to Jaemin right now.

Jeno deepens the kiss by prodding at Jaemin’s lips with his tongue and Jaemin lets him in eagerly. The part of Jaemin that’s been yearning for Jeno’s touch for so long finally feels whole. Jaemin’s fingers press into Jeno’s waist, only able to let out tiny gasps between kisses. Jeno tangles his hand into Jaemin’s hair and gives it a small tug, pulling away for a moment to catch his breath.

“Do you think that was a good first kiss for us?” Jeno asks and Jaemin is brought back to the memory of Yukhei kissing him for the first time. It’s certainly not the same, but it makes a whole new wave of butterflies flutter inside Jaemin.

“More than good,” Jaemin replies, breath mingling with Jeno under the soft moonlight. They stare at each other for a moment before Jaemin says, “Kiss me again.”

** MONTH NUMBER EIGHT: MARCH **

Dejun is surprised to see Jaemin after Valentine’s Day, but they don’t actually get a chance to talk about it until March. Jaemin confesses how he was going to stick to the plan, but then Jeno found him and confessed to him. Dejun sits there with his jaw hanging open and Jaemin feels himself flush.

“I know how it sounds,” Jaemin says. “I also know it’s kinda very bad considering he didn’t completely sign onto your idea.” 

“I didn’t think it was possible for whatever else you were going to say to get worse,” Dejun mutters. “You’ve both complicated things significantly and while I don’t think Jeno is going to try to do anything to you because well, he could have just let you do that yourself— keep your eyes and ears open. Good general advice, but this has crossed into new territory for me.” 

“No, you’re right. I’m not going to completely let my guard down,” Jaemin reassures. “I’m going to really try and convince him of your idea because he’s the perfect person for me to collude with. Especially if we make it less suspicious by the fact that we actually go at each other.”

“You’re saying blackmail anonymously?” Dejun clarifies.

“Yeah, because if we fake fight each other outside or something then it might be convincing. We can handle inflicting some sort of injuries on each other. I did break his nose after all,” Jaemin points out.

“What about if they expect you to finish it or something if you flip the battle or something? Earlier in the year that makes more sense, but now it would be a little suspicious if you ask me.” Dejun raises a good point.

“Maybe we start something in a space where we aren’t allowed to kill each other?” 

“That could work. Just make sure that none of your friends are in on it or else they might tip your hand y’know.” Jaemin nods slowly, thinking everything over in his mind.

* * *

Jaemin talks it over with Jeno who still isn’t one hundred percent on board. The stress of Jeno not making his mind is getting to Jaemin so he set a deadline of the day after Renjun’s birthday to decide. Jeno didn’t seem too pleased about the idea, but they are running out of time and their classmates are dropping like flies.

Gowon, Soobin’s partner, killed Soobin last week and Hyunjin managed to kill Felix. Jaemin barely knew Felix and only really ever talked to Soobin in class, but it still makes his gut twist. If they act faster, they might be able to save more than each other.

They are having lunch outside again today since it’s the first day with no snow on the ground and Donghyuck is really enjoying dramatizing the seasons for some reason.

“I have an announcement,” Donghyuck declares and everyone looks at him. He has a black eye and a busted lip while Renjun’s arm is in a sling and his nose is bruised.

“No standing on the table this time?” Jisung asks, bemused at Donghyuck.

“Sadly not, as my balance is all fucked up due to my lovely black eye from Renjun here,” Donghyuck replies, giving Renjun a look to which Renjun only smiles.

“You’ll need to try harder if you want to beat me,” Renjun teases. Jaemin takes a bite of his sandwich, not wanting to casually talk about his friend dying. He knows it’s normal by this point, but he’s still not going to willingly engage in it.

“Yeah yeah, but anyway— I’m not normally one for making deals,” Donghyuck admits. “But Renjun is still my friend despite how we look right now and I want him to have a nice birthday.”

“Thanks, bro,” Renjun replies, rolling his eyes. “I just want to gorge myself on cake without worrying that you’ll shoot me.” Donghyuck laughs, but Jaemin catches something strange between them. They’ve finally realized what they have to do to each other and it hurts to watch. No one else comments on it, but Jaemin doubts that anyone would have even noticed it.

“Interruptions aside, we’re having a party for Renjun and it’ll be at Jaemin and Jeno’s place.” Jaemin blinks at Donghyuck for a moment while Jeno doesn’t look surprised. “Did you really think that we’d have it in our dorm when yours is three times the size?” Donghyuck makes a fair point.

“Alright, have at it. Just don’t over invite people,” Jaemin says. “I don’t want people there that I don’t know.”

“Low bar, but okay.” Jaemin rolls his eyes, he wants Renjun to have a nice eighteenth birthday since he’ll be the first one in their group that even gets to turn eighteen. Everyone else is seventeen, but Chenle and Jisung are still sixteen. Sometimes Jaemin gets tripped up thinking about how young they all are. Both of his parents are over forty-five and they didn’t have Jaemin until they were in their late twenties. Jaemin still isn’t one hundred percent sure he'll live to see himself have kids. Even if this year is technically successful, there’s a number of things that could cause him to kick the bucket…

* * *

The night of Renjun’s party comes and Donghyuck is the first one there to start decorating, but soon Jaemin and Jeno are deputized to do a lot of the work. Jeno, as Jaemin had quickly discovered, is a risk taker. When Donghyuck isn’t paying attention he’ll plop a quick kiss on Jaemin’s cheek. If either of them are caught being affectionate to each other, nothing bad will necessarily happen— it’s not like dating isn’t against the rules, but it certainly will raise concerns from their friends which Jaemin doesn’t want to deal with. He doesn’t have time for any of that when he’s trying to also bring down the school. It’s for a good cause though, so he really shouldn’t be judged here.

“Hang that streamer higher, Jeno,” Donghyuck directs. “And Jaemin—” Jaemin perks up at his name and looks over at Donghyuck who is trying to hang a happy birthday sign across the wall. “You’re doing great sweetie.” Jaemin laughs and Jeno pouts.

“Maybe you’d get a compliment if you were taller,” Jaemin teases. Jeno glares at him, but he can’t hold it and starts smiling.

“We’re literally the same height,” Jeno retorts, standing on his tiptoes to get the streamer just a little bit higher. Jaemin feels his heart do the funny swoop thing, but shakes himself out of it and turns back to his utensils prep. 

Within another hour, the whole place is decked out and Donghyuck disappears back to his dorm to get dressed while Jaemin chooses to flop down on the couch instead. It isn’t a super formal get together, so his day clothes are fine. Jeno sits down on the floor next to Jaemin and turns towards him, setting his chin on the edge of the couch.

“Can I ask for a favor?” Jaemin gives Jeno a curious glance who continues. “I’m gonna take that as a yes, so I’m formally requesting a kiss.” Why is Jeno so cute? Jaemin leans closer and gives Jeno a kiss on his forehead, but he whines. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then you’re gonna have to use your words,” Jaemin sing-songs. 

“Kiss me on the mouth.” Jaemin really thought Jeno was going to take longer to ask that, but he leans in anyway and kisses Jeno for a moment. Jeno smiles into the kiss and Jaemin pulls away.

“Are you going to change before Renjun’s party or are you wearing that?” Jaemin asks.

“I’m just gonna wear normal clothes.” Jeno hums. “Donghyuck is totally gonna show up here and outdo us, isn’t he?”

“Oh, absolutely.” 

* * *

Everyone arrives at the party, and Jaemin is pleasantly surprised to see that Donghyuck stuck to his word and kept it to friends and acquaintances. He sips on a cup of punch while everyone else chats with each other. To his surprise, Dejun shows up and Jaemin makes his way over to him.

“I did not think you would be here tonight,” Jaemin says and Dejun laughs.

“I didn’t think so either, but Jeno actually invited me.” Jaemin turns to look for Jeno, but doesn’t see him. “Yeah, I thought it was weird too, don’t worry. I think he just picked up on the fact that we’re friends.”

“I’m sure, it must be something like that.” Jaemin takes another sip of his drink. “I think it may also have something to do with the fact that I told him he has until tomorrow to decide if he’s in or out.” Dejun’s eyes widen and Jaemin holds up his hands. “I told him when I was annoyed with him and we are running out of time anyway, so…”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right, but let’s just enjoy Renjun’s birthday for now.” Jaemin nods and they switch the subject to something lighter. A few minutes later, Chenle comes up to them, looking bright eyed as usual.

“Greetings, earthlings,” Chenle says. “I’ve never seen you around before, so I’m here to introduce myself, I’m Chenle.”

“Dejun. I work as a TA in Jaemin’s poisons class.” Chenle nods and then looks in between the two of them. Jaemin shoots him a look, but that doesn’t stop the following word from coming out of Chenle’s mouth.

“So is Jaemin dating you now?” Chenle asks. If Dejun had punch he would have certainly spat it out by now. Jaemin facepalms and mutters something about kids these days.

“Just because I dated Yukhei last semester doesn’t mean I’m dating Dejun this semester,” Jaemin says, sighing. Chenle wouldn’t even ask this if he knew that him and Jeno were together. Though they haven’t put an official label on anything, Jeno saying he could fall in love with Jaemin is pretty serious to him. He just hopes it means as much to Jeno. Jaemin shakes off thoughts of his relationship status, he has bigger issues, and none of those matter tonight. The only one that matters is Renjun.

Speaking of, where is Renjun? Jaemin excuses himself and leaves Dejun to deal with Chenle, the investigative reporter. As long as Dejun doesn’t spill any government secrets, it should be fine. Jaemin looks around for Renjun, he’s already told him happy birthday once, but saying it a second time doesn’t hurt anyone. 

Jaemin weaves in and out of people, trying not to spill his drink while working towards the back of the room where the balcony is. If Renjun wasn’t on the side by the door where Jaemin was then logically, he should be over here. Renjun is standing on the balcony with Donghyuck and he has a hand on Donghyuck’s shoulder. Whatever he seems to be saying is pretty serious, so Jaemin idles by the door for a moment, maybe he should make another loop around— 

Renjun throws himself over the edge of the balcony and Donghyuck screams. Jaemin shoves himself through the door, unsure of exactly what he just saw, but he leans over the side and sees Renjun on the concrete below, smushed like a grape. There’s no way he survived a fall like that, but Jaemin can’t help himself, he races out of the dorm and down the stairs as fast as he can, nearly tripping over his own two feet in his rush.

This can’t be happening. Jaemin already feels himself going into shock, but he’s holding the full effects back with the fact that he doesn’t know for sure that Renjun is really gone yet. He’s out the door and gets down to Renjun’s side, putting two fingers to his neck to check his pulse. It’s so faint that there’s no way he can get a hospital fast enough.

“Jaemin,” Renjun mumbles and Jaemin moves closer to him, taking one of Renjun’s mangled hands in his. “It’s okay. I did it for Donghyuck.” His eyes slip shut and Jaemin feels his body begin to shake. The pulse is gone. Renjun is gone. Tears won’t come. The one time where it feels most appropriate to cry and Jaemin can’t. He stares at Renjun until he’s pulled away by Jeno. He has no idea how long it takes for Jeno to get there, he just knows that there’s Renjun’s blood on his hands and Jeno’s arms around his chest, pulling him away.

“Why did he do that?” Jaemin asks, voice only a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Jeno replies. “I’m so sorry, Jaemin.” 

“Why are you apologizing to me?” Jaemin swallows. “He’s your friend too.” A muscle in Jeno’s cheek twitches and Jaemin knows it's about his use of the present tense, but he’s refusing to accept it. 

“Because I know how much this will hurt you, and yes, he’s my friend too, but I know I’ll be able to cope with it faster than you. I don’t mean that as an insult or anything to you.” Jeno takes a shaky breath. “It’s just how I was raised. I haven’t told you this before, but my parents made it very clear to me that any day one of them could go on a business trip and would never come back.” Jaemin doesn’t think he can feel his fingers anymore. Why is everything so fucking sad? Nothing he sees or learns is happy anymore. All everyone is doing is suffering. All because of being spies. None of this ends up in a James Bond movie because no one wants to be subjected to the harsh truth of the matter. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin whispers, voice cracking and breaking. Now the tears are coming. As the two of them sit on the grass, just out of sight of their friend’s body. Jaemin heaves in a breath and looks at Jeno. They say nothing for a moment until they hear Donghyuck’s cries. Jaemin is up on his foot as quickly as he can, nearly falling over, but looking for Donghyuck.

Donghyuck walks around the side of the dorms and spots Jaemin, practically barreling into his arms. Jaemin cries too and they are joined by Jeno who wraps his arms around both of them, silently crying. Part of Jaemin wonders where Chenle and Jisung are, but part of him hopes they haven’t even realized what’s happened yet and are just confused. 

“I have to tell you guys something,” Donghyuck says through his sobs and hiccups. They loosen their hug and allow Donghyuck to catch his breath and slow his tears for a moment, though the words aren’t any easier to hear. “Renjun told me why he did this. He said that because killing me would destroy my family, he simply couldn’t do it and didn’t want to put me through the pain of killing him.” Donghyuck sobs again, nearly screaming. “He said he’ll accept being a failure to his parents as long as I make mine proud and to think of him fondly.” This shatters Jaemin’s heart into a million tiny pieces. He will never forgive Johnny and Taeyong for driving Renjun to this.

Once Jeno and Jaemin comforted Donghyuck as much as they could, filled in Chenle and Jisung who unsurprisingly broke down, and put everyone to sleep in their apartment, they found themselves alone. Donghyuck is curled on the couch, and Chenle and Jisung took Jeno’s bed, so Jeno and Jaemin are sitting on Jaemin’s bed.

“You’re going to agree to the plan, right?” Jaemin asks. “I don’t know how you could not at this point, but I’ve been feeling that way since the beginning because you’ve known something like this was going to happen eventually.

“I can’t see another end game, so I will,” Jeno relents and it’s light weight has been lifted off of Jaemin’s shoulders.

“I’m not going to class tomorrow.” 

“Me neither.”

“Then do you want to cuddle because every few seconds I keep seeing him and I really don’t want to cry anymore. I’m out of tears for tonight and would just like to be held,” Jaemin whispers and Jeno nods.

“Anything for you.” Those words ring true in Jaemin’s mind as he stands to turn the light off. Jeno pulls himself under the covers and Jaemin comes back to bed to fit himself into Jeno’s arms, holding him as close as he’s holding Jaemin. A few minutes later, Jaemin is still awake, having one last thing he wants to say tonight. 

“I love you.” Jaemin says it so quietly he isn’t even sure Jeno hears him, but once he’s said that, all of his exhaustion from the day hits him like a brick and he falls asleep before he gets to know if Jeno says it back or not.

** MONTH NUMBER NINE: APRIL **

For the first week after Renjun’s death, Jaemin refuses to leave his room. He knows he has classwork piling up at this point, but he can’t bring himself to care. Jeno manages to go to class after three days and brings Jaemin all his work which is now in a stack on his desk, untouched. 

Donghyuck is much the same, moping around Jaemin and Jeno’s dorm, randomly crying and eating all of the ice cream in the freezer. Jaemin and Donghyuck spend their days generally curled on the couch together, trying to feel some semblance of normalcy.

“Can I ask you something terrible?” Donghyuck asks. Jaemin has no idea what Donghyuck is about to say, so he nods. “How are you gonna go through with it?” Well. That’s something that Jaemin had finally escaped from thinking about and now it’s going to be the only thing he thinks of for the next few hours at least. Jaemin swallows, taking a deep breath.

“I don’t know.” Donghyuck can’t know about Jeno and Jaemin’s plan, but Jaemin isn’t going to lie to him and say something that makes Jeno’s death into something that just has to happen. Donghyuck doesn’t say anything else after that, and Jaemin isn’t sure if he gave the right answer. 

Jeno returns from school, two folders in his hand, one for Donghyuck and one for Jaemin. Jaemin stares at Jeno who reluctantly drops the folders on the table. He straightens up and looks at them.

“I think you two should start going to class again,” Jeno begins. “I know it's hard but you can’t stay inside forever and I’m not even saying you have to go back to being your normal self, but just try.” Donghyuck looks like he’s going to cry.

“Don’t you get it, Jeno?” Donghyuck asks. “Normal is completely different now. My normal included Renjun and now he’s gone, so I’m doing my fucking best.” Donghyuck climbs off the couch and storms off into Jaemin’s room, slamming the door behind him. Jeno looks at Jaemin like he wants him to back him up.

“I don’t think you understand how normal people cope with death,” Jaemin says. “I said it before, but you really don’t get it.” Jaemin crosses his legs and stares at Jeno for a moment. He isn’t as put together as he is usually— his hair isn’t brushed all the way and his dress shirt is slightly untucked.

“How am I supposed to get it then?” Jeno asks. “I’m concerned that you two might end up failing if you miss any more class.”

“That’s a valid concern,” Jaemin admits. Jeno’s words come from a place of love, Jaemin is sure of that, the loss of someone, a best friend, can take over someone’s mind. It’s like a vine slowly wrapping around Jaemin’s body. If he lets the vine swallow him up, then he’s gone too far, but right now the vine is comforting and Jaemin needs it still. “I’m going to take you somewhere.” 

“Where?” Jaemin stands up, brushes off his clothes and puts on slippers, walking towards the front door. He’s sure that he’s dressed in the same clothes from two days ago and he’s utterly disgusting, but he doesn’t really care. Jeno doesn’t comment on anything either.

“You’ll see, but first, we need to borrow someone’s keys.” Jaemin takes Jeno down to Dejun’s room where he knocks on the door repeatedly until Dejun opens the door, looking annoyed until he sees Jaemin.

“Oh, Jaemin, hello,” Dejun greets. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, actually,” Jaemin replies. He feels sort of numb, but also like he’s eaten too much sugar, it’s a strange feeling to say the least. “I need to borrow your car. I promise I won’t crash it and I know how to drive. Remember where you took me?”

“Yeah, I’ll get my keys.” Dejun dips back into his room and comes back with his car keys. “Take them, if you think he needs to go it’s for a good reason.”

“You’re the best and if I wasn’t so gross I’d give you a hug,” Jaemin says, smiling for the first time in days.

“I don’t care, come here.” Dejun opens his arms and Jaemin accepts the hug gratefully. He’s sure Jeno is probably confused out of his mind at this point, but it’s fine, he’ll get with the program soon. 

Once they are in Dejun’s car, Jaemin double checks everything before starting the car. It’s been quite awhile since he’s driven a car, so ideally he wants to not smash Dejun’s car.

“Where are we going?” Jeno asks once they are away from the school. Jaemin remembers the route clearly and follows along it, humming as he drives.

“When we get there you’ll understand why I brought you ,” Jaemin replies cryptically. Jeno doesn’t say anything else for the drive, but once Jaemin parks the car, Jeno mumbles something that Jaemin doesn’t catch.

Jaemin climbs out of the car and is walking towards the front gates before Jeno even has undone his seatbelt. He knows exactly where he’s going and he isn’t sure whether or not Renjun will even be there yet, but that’s okay. Jeno needs to see this.

“Are you coming?” Jaemin calls and Jeno jogs to catch up with him.

“Why are we at a cemetery?” Jeno asks, sounding a little bit awkward.

“Why do you think we’re at a cemetery?” Jaemin counters.

“I’m assuming it has something to do with Renjun and Dejun since Dejun just gave you his car,” Jeno says, tone turning frustrated as they walk towards the back of the cemetery.

“Correction; I’m borrowing his car,” Jaemin replies, holding up a finger for emphasis. Jeno rolls his eyes, but nonetheless keeps walking with Jaemin until they reach the first graves. “Okay, stop.” Jeno stops and looks at Jaemin who points down at the first grave. He doesn’t recognize the name on the grave, but the name isn’t really important for right now.

“Who is this person?”

“Wrong question.” Jeno sucks in a breath and Jaemin knows he’s nearing the end of his wit with Jaemin. “Look at the symbol on the headstone. See that upside down half moon in a circle?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“That’s the symbol for everyone who dies as a spy in school or out of school. The rows are by year and this is the first year that they implemented the killing rule.” Jeno is silent. “Yeah, now do you get why I’m dragging you here?” Jeno still doesn’t reply, so Jaemin rolls his eyes, grabs Jeno’s hand and starts pulling him towards last year's students.

Jaemin stops in front of Mark’s grave and sits down in front of it. This time there’s some small daisies blooming around it and Jaemin smiles. He hopes that Mark is doing well wherever he is. Jeno doesn’t sit down next to Jaemin even when Jaemin pats the grass next to him.

“Jeno, sit down.”

“No.” Jeno’s voice is tight. “You think I don’t get it, but I get it more than you.” Jeno takes a deep breath, stabilizing his voice. “In the real world shit happens to people and you won’t know when so why waste your time mourning them. They aren’t coming back and they wouldn’t want you to spend your time moping around.” 

“Mourning is normal,” Jaemin defends. “And I brought you here to explain how death has affected others. You still seem hesitant on blackmailing Johnny and Taeyong, but you can’t be. I don’t want you to get expelled because of me, but just think of all the pain and suffering we could stop.” Jeno hiccups before breaking down crying. He sits down next to Jaemin, unable to stop crying.

Jeno doesn’t say anything, Jaemin merely takes Jeno’s hand in his and waits. Jaemin stares at the flowers again, feeling something stir in himself. Life is such a beautiful and precious thing and being a spy shouldn’t mean that he has to rip life away from innocent people.

“I’m sorry,” Jeno mumbles. “I just don’t want you or Donghyuck to be sad.”

“I know.” They stay there like that for a long time before Jaemin gets the chance to take Jeno to some of the other graves. There’s the students that they knew like Lia, Shotaro, and Eric all the very last row. The row is so much smaller than the other ones which makes Jaemin’s heart ache as eventually it will all fill up. Renjun’s grave hasn’t been placed yet, but Jeno and Jaemin vow to visit him at least once a year to pay respects to someone who impacted and touched their lives in such a strong way. 

When they are leaving the cemetery, Jeno stops and asks Jaemin, “How are we going to get the information about Mr. Suh and Mr. Lee? And how do we not get caught?”

“I can answer both of those with something simple— a fist fight.”

* * *

The only way to find out anything about Taeyong or Johnny would be to break into their offices to start and see if that gives them something on them as neither Jeno or Jaemin even knows where the two of them live. But they are always locked up tight and that is much riskier than Jaemin’s idea.

So how to get into Taeyong or Johnny’s office without breaking in? Be sent to it. Dejun did Jaemin a huge favor and scheduled his meeting with Johnny and Taeyong for lunch on Jeno’s birthday. Now all Jaemin needs to do is kick start things into motion.

“Reminder that I love you and I don’t mean what I’m about to do,” Jaemin mumbles as he walks into the cafeteria with Jeno. Jeno nods. Jaemin really doesn’t expect Jeno to say ‘I love you’ back, it’s more of a reassurance to himself than anything else.

They sit down to lunch with Donghyuck, Chenle and Jisung. Donghyuck had finally managed to start going to class again and Jaemin was honestly really proud of him. Which is why he feels so bad about what he’s going to say.

“Happy birthday, Jeno,” Chenle cheers when they sit down. Jeno smiles and thanks Chenle who beams at him. Donghyuck looks a bit worse for wear as Jeno’s birthday is also one month since Renjun’s death. But he’s making it work.

“Happy birthday,” Donghyuck says with a tight smile.

“Jeno birth,” Jisung chimes in and Jeno laughs. Everything goes smoothly enough until Jaemin gives Jeno a look. Jaemin takes a deep breath, takes one last bite of his rice before speaking.

“Renjun is getting buried today,” Jaemin says. Renjun was buried last week, but Jaemin knows everyone has been purposefully not speaking about Renjun or looking into anything that's going on just for their own sakes.

“Can you not bring that up?” Jeno asks, purposefully sounding annoyed. They reviewed roughly what they would say this morning and last night. While neither of them like that they have to do this, it’s the only option.

“Why not?” Jaemin counters. “It’s happening today and I thought everyone should know.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jaemin sees Donghyuck tense up.

“Because it’s my birthday, everyone has been so fucking sad all month, and I don’t even get to celebrate the fact that I’m finally an adult for fear of bringing everyone down simply by being happy,” Jeno replies, frustration palpable.

“No one said you couldn’t be happy, but you’re being a selfish asshole right now,” Jaemin yells. By now a few nearby students have turned their heads towards Jeno and Jaemin. For good measure, Jaemin shoves Jeno just a little.

“You’re such a dick,” Jeno yells back. “You act like Renjun would want you to be some sad sack forever. Move the fuck on.” That’s the last straw for Donghyuck who nearly trips over the bench in his haste to leave. Chenle and Jisung look torn between going after Donghyuck and trying to break up Jaemin and Jeno. So Jaemin makes the choice easier.

“I fucking hate you!” Jaemin screams, standing up to shove Jeno again. Jeno matches Jaemin’s intensity and stands up, nearly chest to chest with Jaemin.

“I wish you had died instead of Renjun.” Yep, that’ll do it. Jisung runs after Donghyuck with Chenle trailing behind.

“Happy birthday,” Jaemin whispers to Jeno right before he lands his first punch.

To keep it convincing, Jeno and Jaemin actually try to inflict damage on each other, but not break anything. Jeno knocks Jaemin to the floor and punches him in the mouth, causing Jaemin to taste blood for his lip to burst open. Jaemin screams and flips them over, pulling Jeno’s hair and body slamming him against the floor. Jeno groans and Jaemin spits on him, blood landing on his white shirt. With a growl, Jeno throws Jaemin off of him and stands, preparing to strike Jaemin again.

“I’ll fucking kill you!” Jeno screams and Jaemin lunges at Jeno before he has fully prepped his strike, so Jeno swings his leg out and nails a roundhouse kick to Jaemin’s upper thigh, knocking him back down, but Jaemin grabs Jeno and pulls him down as well. Jaemin punches Jeno’s chest, and is prepared to hit him again when someone pulls him off Jeno by force. 

“Let me go,” Jaemin shouts, voice horse. The entire cafeteria, chalk full of mostly seniors, stare at him and Jaemin stares right back. Standing over him is Gowon. She has Jaemin by the collar and looks at him disappointedly.

“You know you can’t do this in here,” Gowon says and Jaemin wants to roll his eyes. Yes, obviously he knows that, but whatever. “Hyunjin! Sunwoo!” Said boys walk over along with Yeji who seems mostly curious about how much damage Jeno and Jaemin did to each other. “Can you help take these two to the office?” 

“You’re not a teacher,” Jaemin points out. “I don’t see why you couldn’t just let me at him.” Jaemin pulls against Gowon’s hold and he nearly gets away but she holds on.

“I’m not, but I also know neither of you want to get expelled.” She scoffs and Jaemin sighs, he supposes that she has a point, and technically they were relying on someone to break them up. Gowon lets go of Jaemin, but Sunwoo replaces her and takes him by the arm towards the office. Hyunjin does the same with Jeno.

* * *

“I have no idea what you two were thinking,” Taeyong mumbles, coming out of Johnny’s office frazzled. “But I do know that I’m in the middle of a meeting, so you two need to go sit in my office while I finish. If you inflict any other injuries on each other, your punishment is going to be much worse than it already is.” Jeno and Jaemin don’t say anything, simply taking seats across from Taeyong’s desk. He leaves the office and shuts the door behind him, going next door to wrap up the meeting with Dejun. 

Dejun promised he would stretch it as long as he could, but they are still under a time crunch here, so once the door to Johnny’s office closes, Jaemin and Jeno spring out of their chairs. Every part of Jaemin’s body hurts and aches, but this is the cost of getting in here. 

Jeno heads to the filing cabinet, scanning for anything while Jaemin looks in and around Taeyong’s desk. He opens up the bottom drawer to find a picture of Taeyong when he was in school and sees him with someone else who looks exactly like him. Jaemin isn’t sure that it’s anything, but he’s never even heard of Taeyong’s brother before, so it still strikes him as odd. One of them has a large scar across the palm of his hand which even in this photo is barely visible. It’s nothing more than a white line across a palm. Sure, it's long and probably much more obvious in person, but still.

“I know this is the weirdest timing, but I’d like to say that I heard you when you said I love you,” Jeno admits and Jaemin spins his head towards Jeno who’s still flicking through files. “And I’d like to just say that I love you too.” Jaemin stares at Jeno for a moment. This isn’t the time, place or circumstance that he imagined Jeno saying ‘I love you,’ but Jaemin has got to hand it to him, Jeno sure knows how to pick a place to confess. In the office of the headmaster which they are trying to blackmail. Yep, perfect.

“I didn’t expect that,” Jaemin mumbles. “But can we talk about this later? Taeyong has a twin.” Jeno looks at Jaemin who holds up the picture. “And one of them has this scar on their hand and I’m not sure if it's Taeyong or not, but I’ve never heard of his brother.”

“Me neither,” Jeno says, looking at the photograph closely. “His brother may have died and if we know who killed him, maybe that’s something Taeyong doesn’t want publicized?” 

“Yeah, it’s at least a good place to start,” Jaemin replies. He closes the drawer and stands, looking for anything else that may give him a clue to something about Taeyong. 

“I found Mr. Lee’s file and it has his address on it.” Jaemin spins around to Jeno, eyes wide.

“You know what this means, right?” Jaemin asks and Jeno nods. They hear the door to Johnny’s office open again and quickly close the filing cabinet and go back to their chairs. Jeno pockets the sheet of paper and crosses his legs before Taeyong walks into the office.

“I’m glad to see the two of you have remained civil,” Taeyong says, closing the door behind him. “Now, can you explain to me what happened?”

* * *

Jaemin and Jeno decide that in order to fully convince Taeyong and Johnny that they are not suspicious in any way shape or form, Jeno needs to fake his death. He’ll do the same thing that Jaemin did, except Jaemin will take credit for his death. They’ll say that Jaemin chased Jeno deep into the woods and he stabbed Jeno. No one will want to go look for his body the day before spring break, so Jaemin is all good.

Jeno will hide away for a day, but come home with Jaemin over spring break. Then over break they’ll break into Taeyong’s house, investigate further and hopefully find something bad enough to blackmail him with. Once they have what they need, they’ll mail a letter with the information and a threat to spread it, all anonymously. They’ve trained for this in a way. Being sneaky and not being caught while breaking in places is a part of being a spy, even if this isn’t the intended use of those skills.

After some digging, Jeno found out that Taeyong’s twin, Taehyung, was partnered with Johnny, which raised another level of suspicion for them. How are Johnny and Taeyong so close with each other after Johnny killed Taeyong’s brother? That in itself wouldn’t be scandalous, but it’s fishy.

So Jaemin does some more nosing around. He can’t find any other pictures of Taeyong and Taehyung where they are labeled. Or any photos really to be honest. Taehyung’s name turns up next to nothing and Taeyong’s searches only relate to him being dean at Neo School for the Gifted.

But eventually the night comes and Jaemin says goodbye to Jeno. For added realism, Jaemin has a small vial of Jeno’s blood and he’ll chase after Jeno one minute after he leaves. Jaemin counts to sixty, takes a deep breath and heads outside. He can’t even see Jeno at first, but eventually he catches sight of him through the trees.

Jaemin runs after him like they are playing tag. Jeno runs as fast as he can and he keeps a strong lead on Jaemin for a while, but Jaemin gets a second wind from somewhere and manages to catch him, knocking both of them to the ground. Jeno ends up underneath Jaemin, laughing quietly.

“Why are you laughing?” Jaemin asks. “I’m supposed to be scary.” Jaemin pouts and Jeno only laughs more, pulling Jaemin closer to kiss him softly. Giving into the kiss, Jaemin takes in as much of Jeno as he can as this will be the last he sees of him on school grounds possibly until the rest of the year. Jeno breaks the kiss and looks at Jaemin.

“I love you.” Jaemin kisses Jeno again, hands gripping the front of Jeno’s shirt. He still hasn’t gotten over the feeling of kissing Jeno. It still feels like the first time, even though this time they are still covered in scrapes and bruises from their scene in the cafeteria. Jaemin’s lip throbs when he pulls away, but he doesn’t care.

“I love you too.”

** SPRING BREAK **

Jaemin comes back out of the woods right as people are waking up, covered in dirt with Jeno’s blood on his hands and a few bits on his face and clothes. It’s unsettling because Jaemin is going to really have to sell this, but he knows Jeno’s okay, so he’ll be okay.

Somehow Donghyuck is the first one to see him. He takes in Jaemin’s appearance and he goes deathly pale. Jaemin hoped that Donghyuck wouldn’t see him at all like this. The blood and dirt make everything seem much worse than it is.

“Jaemin…” Donghyuck keeps his distance from Jaemin. They haven’t been doing great since Jeno and Jaemin’s fight. They all eat lunch like nothing happened, but Chenle and Jisung have to carry the conversation since Donghyuck can’t even look at Jeno. “You killed him, didn’t you?”

“I had to,” Jaemin replies, eyes cast down. “I want to graduate.” 

“Unbelievable,” Donghyuck mutters. He walks away from Jaemin without looking back. Jaemin aches to tell him the truth, that it will all be okay, but he can’t. They’ve come so far and there’s no turning back now.

Jaemin lets a few others see him as he walks back to his room. Yeji looks proud of him while Sunwoo looks sad. Hyunjin offers to open the door for Jaemin so he doesn’t have to get blood on his front door. Jaemin accepts the help gratefully, and lets the door shut behind him. They all know what’s happened and now all Jaemin has to do is go throughout the rest of the day like this is normal. Then he’ll go home and meet up with Jeno.

The blood stains his hands which is really not what he wants right now. Everyone will spread the word among themselves, and considering Jaemin came in early in the morning covered in dirt, they’ll assume Jeno’s body is somewhere in the woods.

Jaemin pulls himself together before his first class and walks in with his back held high. There’s this silence as he walks through the room and takes his seat. No one dares speak. Jaemin can’t tell if it’s because Jaemin was the underdog or if it’s something else. He’s on the verge of snapping at someone, but the teacher walks in and he bites his tongue.

* * *

After Jaemin’s third class, he’s stopped in the hallway by a tall kid who Jaemin thinks he may have met once before, but he can’t place the name to the face. The kid looks really nervous to even be speaking to Jaemin and he bites his lip before even introducing himself.

“I really don’t mean to bother you, but I really have to know how you went through with it?” Jaemin knows what the kid is asking and it breaks his heart. He can’t tell him that he doesn’t have to worry about it, because Jaemin technically knows that for sure.

“It’s not easy and it takes a lot of guts to do,” Jaemin replies. “But you have to do it, so you figure it out with yourself. Don’t slight yourself on it being difficult for you, more people than you know have the same struggle.”

“Thank you.” The kid looks like he’s about to leave, but Jaemin really wants to know who he is.

“I’m sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?” Jaemin asks. “You look so familiar and I just cannot figure out what your name is.”

“Oh, I’m Sungchan. I’m a year below you.” Jaemin’s heart sinks. Sungchan. As in, Chenle’s partner, Sungchan. 

“You’re Chenle’s partner, that’s how I know you.” Sungchan bites the inside of his cheek and nods. 

“You can get to your lunch now, thanks again.” Sungchan disappears down the hall and Jaemin leans against the wall. Meeting Sungchan has sort of ruined his consolation if things go wrong. Sungchan doesn’t want to kill Chenle, but Jaemin just told him that he has to. Oh fuck. Jaemin thought that he could keep it together, but he can’t.

He storms down the hallway, away from the lunchroom and towards the nearest bathroom. There’s no one in there and Jaemin locks himself in one of the stalls before letting himself cry again. Jeno is still alive, but he’s the only that gets to know. Everyone else has to assume he’s dead and that Jaemin was the one who killed him. And then Sungchan asking him for fucking advice. 

It reminds Jaemin of back when Yangyang asked him for help. Then Shotaro ended up dead. Maybe if he hadn’t— Jaemin is going to stop himself right there. He can cry, but he can’t change the past. The faces of all the students Jaemin knows who have died swirl around in his mind and right at the center is Chenle. Sweet, innocent, Chenle. He doesn’t have to die and that’s why Jaemin is doing this.

The crying still won’t stop, so Jaemin stays there longer. It doesn’t matter if he skips lunch, he’ll eat a snack or something when he goes home. The bathroom door opens and Jaemin tries to stifle his crying, but he can’t and hopes that whoever comes will leave.

“Jaemin?” It’s Donghyuck and Jaemin only cries harder. How does he even begin to apologize for the hurt that he’d put Donghyuck through? “It’s only me. Chenle and Jisung are having lunch outside today, but I couldn’t find you after class, so I came to look for you.”

“Why are you here?” Jaemin asks, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and sniffling. This year has come so close to breaking Jaemin and he can’t let it.

“Because I wanted to remind you before break that you’re my friend and I love you very much. I’m sorry for snapping at you this morning—”

“Please don’t apologize for that,” Jaemin interrupts. “You’re welcome to be upset at me for that, but I really didn’t have another option. No one has another option.”

“I know.” Now Donghyuck is crying too. Jaemin can tell he’s standing in front of the stall where Jaemin is by his shoes, and Jaemin takes a deep breath. “It hurts so bad. But we have to keep going. We’ll be the greatest spies that there ever was and we’ll make Renjun and Jeno so proud.” That breaks Jaemin. He wants to tell Donghyuck that no one else is ever going to have to go through this again so badly.

“Can I have a hug?” Jaemin asks.

“If you open the stall door, you can,” Donghyuck replies. Jaemin unlocks the door and stands up, Donghyuck pulls Jaemin into his arms and they stand like that for several minutes until their tears dry and they can head outside.

* * *

When Jaemin gets home, he finds Jeno already there, idling outside. Jeno lights up when he sees Jaemin and takes his suitcase.

“Were you waiting here long?” Jaemin asks.

“Nope. I only got here about five minutes ago, so let's hope your parents still remember me from over five years ago,” Jeno says, smiling. Jaemin is still feeling a bit emotionally raw from earlier, which he wants to tell Jeno about, but he needs to find the right time.

“I’m sure they will,” Jaemin reassures. “You’re very memorable.” Jeno wiggles his eyebrows and Jaemin smiles. He has no idea why Jeno is in such a good mood, but it’s refreshing to see considering the climate right now.

They walk in and Jaemin’s mom immediately recognizes Jeno even if she can’t quite remember what his name is. When they sit down to eat dinner, it makes Jaemin think of how similar this is to when he brought Yukhei home. The spy parts and values are stripped away, leaving Jeno and Yukhei as normal teenagers. They’re honestly more similar than they realize in Jaemin’s opinion, but maybe he’s just biased.

After dinner, Jeno goes into the guest room and plops down on the bed. Jaemin lays down next to him on his stomach, enjoying the feeling of cool sheets against his face. Jeno rubs Jaemin’s back slowly and hums something under his breath. 

“You seem tense,” Jeno observes.

“What a perfect lead into the thing I’ve been wanting to tell you all day,” Jaemin says. He rolls over and Jeno’s hand comes back to rest on Jaemin’s chest, feeling his heart rate increase. “Sungchan came up to me and asked me how I was able to kill you and I gave him a vague lie, but then I remembered that he’s Chenle’s partner and cried in the bathroom until Donghyuck found me.”

“Wow.” Jeno rubs Jaemin’s chest for a moment, trying to find the words. “I leave you alone for one day—” Jaemin knows Jeno is saying that as a joke, but Jaemin’s face still falls. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not actually going to leave you.” Jeno leans down and kisses Jaemin’s forehead, looking apologetic.

“It’s okay. I’m just so fucking exhausted from life y’know?” Jeno nods.

“Yeah, I’m only in such a good mood because I got free donuts when I bought coffee,” Jeno admits. “And before you ask, yeah I wore a mask and a hood. But no one from school is going to be looking for me and once my parents get the memo, they won’t do anything.” Dejun’s words about spy parents viewing their dead children as disappointments pops back into Jaemin’s mind.

“You know I’m extremely proud of you, right?” 

“Yeah, I know.” A small smile plays on Jeno’s lips. “I also know that we are going to do as much as we can help everyone, which is also making me happy. I’ve finally gotten out of the being afraid phase.”

“I’m glad. I’m assuming being by yourself in nature did the trick,” Jaemin says.

“Mhm, I just really thought about everything and I came out of it feeling like a new person in a way,” Jeno confesses. Jaemin yawns and Jeno pokes his cheek. “Is it bedtime for you?”

“Maybe so,” Jaemin mumbles. “But I don’t want to go all the way back to my bed.”

“You don’t have to,” Jeno says. “I’ll do some more research on Taeyong’s house in your room and come back here when I’m ready for bed.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Jaemin replies. He catches how Jeno used Taeyong’s name instead of Mr. Lee. While Jaemin never talked to Jeno about what Dejun said before, he thinks that Jeno might have reached the same conclusion Dejun reached. Jaemin drifts off a few minutes later, Jeno flicking off the lights and giving him another forehead kiss.

* * *

Finally the day of the break in comes. Jeno had hacked into the security system at Taeyong’s house and found the best time for them to break in would be during the afternoon when Taeyong is gone. Taeyong is too much of a professional to give them enough time during the night, so afternoon it is.

“You look so sexy in black,” Jeno jokes as he and Jaemin are getting dressed in their break in clothes. Even though it’s during the day, they want to wear things that won’t leave any fibers or fingerprints behind.

“Thanks, babe,” Jaemin replies, putting his gloves and ski mask in the bag. Jeno does the same and they give each other a quick look over before sneaking out of Jaemin’s house. Jaemin’s parents aren’t the most observant so it isn’t difficult and the pair drive to Taeyong’s house with no issue.

They slip on the ski masks and gloves in the car and duck their heads while walking up to one of the windows on the side of Taeyong’s house. If the cops get called on them that’s going to be ridiculously embarrassing, not to mention compromising because everyone thinks Jeno is dead.

Jeno pops the window and slides in without a sound. Jaemin does the same and closes the window behind him, locking it so it’s just like how they came in. Taeyong’s house looks like that of someone who’s married and considering kids. It’s a strange look to describe, but anyone who saw it would say the exact same thing. There’s some expensive things for visuals and they are too breakable to have with kids. Everything is in shades of deep blue and brown which is a solid color palette, but that’s irrelevant right now.

Jaemin goes upstairs while Jeno explores down stairs, but before Jaemin can even get all the way up the stairs he sees photos of Taeyong. He’s getting married in them clearly, but Jaemin knows the other person in the photograph; it’s Johnny. Johnny and Taeyong are married. Jaemin walks the rest of the way up the stairs and walks into the office. There’s another picture of Taeyong and Johnny together on the desk which doesn’t concern Jaemin. The very fact they are married is certainly something, but it might not be enough in this case. 

The filing cabinet is locked, but Jaemin opens the locks with a bobby pin easily. It’s all financial records, but when Jaemin looks at them closer he sees a different name on the files. Johnny Suh and Taehyung Suh. Taehyung is the name of Johnny’s partner when he was in school, so why— 

The answer is as clear as day to Jaemin. Johnny and Taehyung were in love. And Taehyung had a twin brother Taeyong. Johnny had to kill Taehyung, the man he was in love with, so to cover it all up, Johnny killed Taeyong, said it was Taehyung and Taehyung assumed the identity of Taeyong. They haven’t pulled it off perfectly though as legally Taeyong is still Taehyung. But who’s going to notice something like that besides one of their coworkers who is the same age. 

That’s why Johnny killed the real Taeyong off campus. So he could kill him and keep the true identity of the body a mystery. Johnny killed the wrong twin on purpose because of love. It’s all very confusing and Jaemin is jumping to fill in gaps, but it makes perfect sense. 

The front door opens and Jaemin panics. How is this his second time having a break in be interrupted? Jaemin slips the file into his clothes and shuts the filing cabinet. There isn’t anywhere good to hide in this room, so Jaemin takes a risk and heads down the hall until he hits Johnny and Taeyong’s bedroom.

He slips in and is about to throw himself under the bed, but Johnny is sitting there reading the paper. But Jaemin was sure that Johnny had left the house with Taeyong. They literally saw it on the cameras. 

“You thought you could outdo two professional spies, huh?” Johnny puts the newspaper down and looks at Jaemin who’s body fills with fear. Curse Johnny’s silent footsteps.

“You killed Taeyong’s twin so you could be with him,” Jaemin spits. “So why keep the killing rule?”

“Let me counter with this— why did you beat up Jeno?” Johnny asks. Jaemin’s stomach sinks. This cannot get any worse. 

Jaemin is wrong, obviously as Taeyong walks in right at that moment with Jeno who is ski mask-less and looking at Jaemin sadly. For a brief second, the four of them all look at each other before Taeyong says something.

“You’re going to hand back the file you stole, Jaemin, or I’m going to make sure Jeno actually ends up dead,” Taeyong threatens. Jeno shakes his head violently. They lock eyes and Jaemin knows what Jeno wants him to do, but Jaemin can’t do it.

“Fine.” Jaemin very slowly takes the file back out, looking for something in particular. There’s something that can help him easily without the need for the file. It’s very easy to prove who Taeyong really is with one special thing called DNA. If Jaemin can get his hands on some of Taeyong’s DNA he can have it tested and prove who Taeyong really is. “But you let Jeno go first.” 

“Fair enough.” Jaemin pulls off his ski mask and gloves, trying to communicate something to Jeno. He might have gotten it, but Jaemin doesn’t know as Jeno leaves and he waits until he hands the file over to Taeyong.

“By the way, Jaemin, you’re expelled,” Johnny adds and Jaemin looks at him. Jaemin doesn’t contest it, so he lets Taeyong lead him out of the house. Jeno is already in the car behind the wheel and Jaemin collapses into the passenger seat.

“Did you understand my look?” Jaemin asks. 

“Yep, I got something with Taeyong’s DNA on it. I found a similar thing to whatever file you found in the living room. Along with this.” Jeno produces a coffee cup and a memorial of Taehyung.

“Well that’s something,” Jaemin says. “I hope that coffee cup has Taeyong’s DNA and not Johnny’s on it. And is the scar visible in that picture?”

“Only Taeyong drinks coffee in the middle of the afternoon and there was a little liquid in the bottom still so the odds are pretty high considering there was also no other cups on the counter.” Jaemin nods and Jeno starts driving. “The scar is semi-visible in the memorial. Just having both is enough to fuck over Johnny and Taeyong.” Jaemin nods. What do they do now though?

“I just got expelled,” Jaemin reveals. “So I can’t really go back on campus now, especially because it’s break so what do we do?”

“Publicize it like crazy,” Jeno replies. “Who do you know who lives around here?” Jaemin racks his mind for a moment until he remembers something.

“Yangyang owes me a favor and I know his number,” Jaemin says excitedly. “Let's get back to my house and then I’ll call him. He’s not expelled after all.”

* * *

“Okay, are you following now?” Jaemin asks. As it turns out, explaining Johnny and Taeyong’s situation is decently complicated. “All I need is for you to test this DNA and print the results, then start spreading them to everyone you can think of.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve finally wrapped my head around this mess,” Yangyang says. “Give me your address and I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

True to his word, Yangyang knocks on Jaemin’s door exactly twenty minutes later. Seeing Yangyang hasn’t really gotten any easier, but Jaemin does his best. Jeno hands over the picture and coffee cup, both in Ziploc bags since it’s not like Jaemin’s parents own evidence bags.

“How fast do you need these?” Yangyang asks.

“Before the end of spring break,” Jaemin replies. “We want to stop anyone else from dying because if the people in charge won’t even follow the rules, then why should we.”

“I like the way you think,” Yangyang says. “I just wish someone would have discovered this a long time ago.” Yangyang’s expression is sad and Jaemin’s stomach twists.

“Thank you again,” Jeno adds on. “Make sure to tell as many people as you can, especially those whose partners are still alive.”

“Can do.”

** MONTH NUMBER TEN: MAY **

Yangyang keeps Jaemin and Jeno up to speed on the whole process, both of them on edge until the results come in. And they were right. Yangyang calls and tells them the news that Taeyong is in fact Taehyung. The relief of being right brings Jaemin to the verge of tears. Now that they have this confirmed, they need to tell the whole school.

Much to Jaemin’s surprise, Yangyang offers to break into the school and plaster photocopies of everything all over. Jeno and Jaemin offer to help, but Yangyang turns them down, citing the fact that they probably won’t be able to even walk onto campus now. It’s better safe than sorry, but Jaemin thinks he could have done it. Though he did also think he could break into Taeyong and Johnny’s house without getting caught.

It comes to the first day of school in May in nearly no time. Jeno and Jaemin decide to simply show up at school and see what happens. Neither of them dress in the usual high class fashion that Neo School for the Gifted expects of them, instead dressing down, but once they step into the school, people swarm them both.

“Can I get some space please?” Jaemin asks, trying to work his way through the crowd of students. He didn’t think that this many people would care that he’s returned with Jeno, but once Jaemin gets through enough to see the flyers covering the walls, he sees why he’s being swarmed.

They say how Johnny and Taeyong broke the killing rule for love, so Jeno and Jaemin should be allowed to as well. Jaemin has no idea where Yangyang even got the idea that they were dating, but he doesn’t care. This is exactly what Jaemin wanted. No one is going to do anything else hurtful now.

“All of you disperse now.” Johnny is standing outside of the main office, looking down at the students disapprovingly. Most of them leave except for the few that Jaemin knows personally. Donghyuck is there, so is Chenle and Jisung, along with Yeji, Hyunjin, Gowon, Soobin and Sunwoo. Then there’s Yangyang in the middle of them, standing tall against Johnny. “That includes you and Jaemin, I thought you heard you were expelled?”

“If we’re expelling people, then you should have been expelled long ago for breaking the rules,” Donghyuck chimes in. “You let students kill themselves and each other while knowing why people wouldn’t want to do that. Do you even care for your students at all?”

“You don’t know anything. All that is is a stupid flyer that isn’t even true,” Johnny declares, ripping on of the posters off the walls. “And for Jeno, you’re expelled as well.”

“For what?” Jeno asks. “I skipped one day of school, I didn’t do anything else.”

“You broke into my home,” Johnny deadpans. “Now all of you— leave or it’s detention.” 

“Detention is a walk in the park compared to the fact that I had to kill my best friend of five years,” Yeji says, taking a seat on the floor. “I’m calling my parents as soon as lunch hits, I know they won’t stand for this.”

“I’ll do the same,” Hyunjin agrees, also sitting. The rest of them all follow suit and Johnny is left with no choice but to retreat back into his office. 

“What do we do now?” Gowon asks. “Yes, call our parents, but what about proof?”

“There’s DNA that proves Taeyong was lying about who he was,” Jaemin says. “Yangyang turned it over to his parents this morning and I don’t know how that went.”

“It went great, they’re sending some other formal spy to come investigate. Which, as my mom said, is code for shit is about to go down.” Everyone cheers at that. Jaemin looks around his fellow students, feeling overwhelmingly sad, but relieved.

“I’m so sorry that all of you lost someone you care about to a system that forces you to only care about yourself or risk it all,” Jaemin announces. “That sort of pain is one from which we will all need time to recover from and I wish you all the best.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need years of therapy from this year,” Sunwoo says. “That’s not even a joke, what the fuck was this year?”

“You can say that again,” Jeno adds on. “I don’t know why everyone let this continue for so long.”

“I think there were simply people like Taeyong and Johnny in charge for far too long. They never saw the reason to change the system since they were put through it, even though Johnny and Taeyong cheated the system.” Everyone nods and is quiet for a moment, mulling over their time in school.

“Why are you all sitting on the floor?” There’s a man in a full three piece suit standing in the doorway to the school and Jaemin looks at him curiously. 

“Form of protest,” Jaemin replies. “Who are you?”

“Taeil Moon, head investigator for spy conduct in the FBI. We’ve long been pushing for the killing rule to be phased out in spy academies around the country, but there hasn’t been enough support for it from the community. Now with this, that should change that. But I need to find Johnny Suh and Taehyung Suh,” Taeil explains and Jaemin points at the main office doors. So it seems like everything really will be okay after all. Chenle and Jisung will never have to kill a student for the sake of fucking graduating and the students who still hadn’t done anything to each other will also get to live. And as for the rest of them— well, they will all be okay in due time.

** GRADUATION **

Despite Johnny having actual reasons to expel Jeno and Jaemin, they are reinstated when Taeil takes over as headmaster. He tells everyone it is merely until the end of the year and until Johnny and Taeyong have been properly dealt with, but everyone takes a liking to him immediately.

The last month of school practically flies by with Jaemin feeling absolutely zero stress for the first time all year. He doesn’t even care about finals, that’s how relaxed he is. Jeno and Jaemin start publicly dating and Jisung makes sure to voice his displeasure at their PDA every time they so much as kiss. So naturally, Jeno takes to kissing Jaemin as many times as he can before Jisung threatens to leave the lunch table.

In the blink of an eye, Jaemin is taking his finals. He’s certainly studied for them, but not nearly as many hours as he used to, yet he still feels confident in how he does. Jeno jokes about beating him in them again, and Jaemin says that Jeno shouldn’t underestimate him.

Then its graduation. They all walk the stage in front of proud parents who think they’re students have completed high school, but really they’ve done so much more. They are all certified spies. Jeno and Jaemin are named co-valedictorian for their work towards the end of the year and phenomenal work throughout school.

When the ceremony comes to a close, Jaemin feels himself close to tears. He’s cried so much this year, but he can’t help it. He’s an emotional person who needs to express himself someway. Jeno pulls him into a hug off stage. They stay in each other's arms until Jeno’s parents walk over to them.

“I’m really proud of you both,” Jeno’s mom says. “And I know we never really met properly, but I’m happy that you’re dating Jeno considering the positive influence you had on him and so many others. I think of my partner nearly every day and it’s something that pains me, so I’m glad you two will never have to experience that.”

“Thank you,” Jaemin replies. Nothing can bring him down right now. Everything is perfect right now. Jaemin gets a tap on his shoulder and turns around to see Yukhei and Dejun. Yukhei is holding a huge bouquet of flowers. “Yukhei!” Jaemin moves away from Jeno to let him speak to his parents and Yukhei sets the flowers on the edge of the stage, crushing Jaemin in a huge hug.

“I cannot tell you how happy I am that everything ended up like this,” Yukhei begins. “And I also have to thank you for something else.” Yukhei interlocks his pinky with Dejun’s and lifts them up. “Dejun is my boyfriend now, thanks to you.” 

“Wow,” Jaemin says, in shock. “An unlikely pairing, but I completely support it.”

“Yeah, he’s been dying to tell you all month because he’s giddy, but you already knew that,” Dejun adds in and Jaemin laughs.

“I completely understand.” 

“Anyway, these flowers are for you because you did amazing this year,” Yukhei reiterates, gesturing at the flowers. Jaemin has absolutely no idea how he will carry those to the car, let alone even fit them in the car, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

“Jaemin!” Jaemin’s parents steal him away from Yukhei and Dejun. “We’re so proud of you.” Even though Jaemin has been told that several times already, he doesn’t think it’ll get old. 

“Mom, Dad, I have to confess something,” Jaemin begins. “I know this ceremony is meant to look very normal as some parents don’t know, but I am now a spy. You sent me to spy boarding school without knowing for five years— but I had a blast and I love it here, despite the fact that I almost had to kill Jeno.” His parents stare at him for a moment.

“Are you serious?” Jaemin’s dad asks. “You better not be yanking our chain or anything here.” 

“I’m not, I promise you. Go up to any kid or adult in here and they will tell you that this school, Neo School for the Gifted is a spy academy. You also can’t tell anyone, but considering you are my parents, I think you should know what your tuition money went towards,” Jaemin explains. “Hey Jeno, can you come over here?” Jeno turns around and comes over to Jaemin.

“What’s up?” Jeno asks.

“I told my parents that they sent me to spy school without realizing,” Jaemin repeats and Jeno looks at him.

“Was that really a good idea though?” 

“Yeah, I know, but like they’re my parents,” Jaemin points out.

“We are also standing right here.” Jeno and Jaemin turn their attention back to Jaemin’s parents who are looking a bit more shocked now that Jeno didn’t just laugh in Jaemin’s face and tell him that spy school isn’t real or something like that.

“Yeah, spy school is real,” Jeno says. “I know that might like freak you out at first, but Jaemin really is a wonderful spy and is going to do a lot of good in the world.” That seems to appease Jaemin’s parents a bit, but they still look shocked.

“Maybe your parents should talk to mine,” Jaemin suggests.

“Great idea,” Jeno agrees. He calls his parents over and quickly summarizes what Jaemin just did. While that’s against the rules of being a spy, Jeno’s parents are understanding and agree that Jaemin’s parents probably needed to know.

Jeno and Jaemin take this moment to sneak backstage, just the two of them. There’s still more people they need to talk to, but for right now, they both just need a breather.

“I really can’t believe we both graduated, setting aside the almost murder,” Jaemin says, pulling his cap and gown off over his head and setting them on some random chair. Jeno does the same. They both wore street clothes under the uniform as there’s no way either of them were going to wear that longer than they had to.

“Yeah, me neither. It was never as painful as it could have been schoolwork wise, but it is still something else to actually graduate. I’m an adult too, which is so woah.” Jeno laughs and sits down on a chair, looking up at Jaemin.

“I am not an adult yet, but only three more months,” Jaemin says. “I feel like it was just yesterday that we met for the first time.” Jeno holds out his arms to Jaemin who walks over and lets himself be pulled into Jeno’s lap and pulled close. Jaemin gives Jeno a cheek kiss and Jeno sticks his head in the crook of Jaemin’s neck.

“That was so long ago,” Jeno mumbles. “Who knew we would end up like this?”

“No one, that’s for sure,” Jaemin replies with a tight laugh. It hurts to think about everything that they have been through, but they got to the other side of it all. “But enough talk about the past— what about the future? What do you think it holds for us?”

“Maybe we’ll be like Mr. And Mrs. Smith,” Jeno muses and Jaemin laughs again, but this time it’s much more genuine. “Or maybe we’ll be spies for a year, decide we hate it, and start an animal shelter. I really don’t know.”

“Being Mr. And Mrs. Smith would be cool,” Jaemin admits. “But you’re right, we have no idea what’s gonna happen. It’s scary to think about, but I think I’m ready to face anything now, no matter how scary.”

“That’s really good, Jaemin.” Jeno gives Jaemin a squeeze and they stay like that for a moment.

“Hey, Jeno?” Jeno hums and pulls his head out of Jaemin’s neck to look up at him. “I love you to the moon and back. From here to the farthest star in the galaxy and back and then another loop because I love you just that much.” Jeno smiles and brings one of his hands from Jaemin’s waist up to poke Jaemin’s cheek.

“Did you know that I love you so much there aren’t enough pieces of sand for just how much I love you?” Jeno asks, eyes sparkling and Jaemin feels his heart skip a beat looking at Jeno.

“I did not know that, I assumed as much as the amount of McDonalds there are on Earth, which is a close second to sand in terms of the sheer numbers of things, but wow— I really got number one,” Jaemin says, and he knows that doesn’t make complete sense, but Jeno doesn’t care.

“You’re cute.”

“No, you.” 

“I think you should kiss me,” Jeno says and who is Jaemin to tell him no? Jaemin leans down and kisses Jeno, once again feeling those fireworks in his chest shooting off in every direction. Jaemin laces his hands in Jeno’s hair, taking in every bit that is Jeno and made him fall in love in the first place. From Jeno’s smile to his caring heart to his brain— everything that makes up Jeno makes Jaemin’s heart warm with love. Truly, Jaemin thinks, this is his happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/occultclysms)   
>  [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.qa/carrotyeol)


End file.
